Arduino-based experiment demonstrating Malus's law

Malus's law states that the intensity of light after passing through two polarizers is proportional to the square of the cosine of the angle between the polarizers. We present a simple setup demonstrating this law. The novelty of our work is that we use a multi-turn potentiometer mechanically l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physics education 2018-05, Vol.53 (3), p.35034
Main Authors: Freitas, W P S, Cena, C R, Alves, D C B, Goncalves, A M B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Light
Luminous intensity
Measurement Equipment
Physics
Polarizers
Potentiometers
Rotation
Science Experiments
Scientific Concepts
Scientific Principles
Trigonometric functions
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Summary:Malus's law states that the intensity of light after passing through two polarizers is proportional to the square of the cosine of the angle between the polarizers. We present a simple setup demonstrating this law. The novelty of our work is that we use a multi-turn potentiometer mechanically linked to one of the polarizers to measure the polarizer's rotation angle while keeping the other polarizer fixed. Both the potentiometer and light sensor used to measure the transmitted light intensity are connected to an Arduino board so that the intensity of light is measured as a function of the rotation angle.
ISSN:0031-9120
1361-6552
DOI:10.1088/1361-6552/aab43d