Question

A beam of light is passed through a polaroid and the latter is rotated with the beam of light as axis. The intensity of the emergent light varies between a maximum and minimum. Then the light used is

• A. a mixture of elliptically polarised and unpolarised light only
• B. elliptically polarised light only
• C. Either (1) or (2)
• D. Neither (1) nor (2).

Answer 1

Answer: (A)

a mixture of elliptically polarised and unpolarised light only

Answer 2

$\because \sin \theta_{e}=\cot \theta_{p}$ $=\frac{1}{\tan \theta_{p}}=\frac{1}{\tan 60}$ $\therefore \sin \theta_{c}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}$