Verification of Malus Law

Tiasha Biswas(msc2203121012)
January 17, 2023

Apparatus used
1.A diode laser with power supply (3mW,650nm RED).
2.Kinematic Laser mount.
3.A polarizer-analyser pair(1 smallest unit of circular scale =2o ).
3.Pinhole photo detector with output measurement unit.
4.Optical rail (500mm).
5.Detector mount.

Figure 1: Apparatus used in experiment

Theory:
Light is dual in nature i.e. it acts both like particles and waves.Light is a
transverse electromagnetic wave and polarisation of light(alignment of electric
vector in a particular direction) proves that.The electric vector is the light vector
i.e. it is responsible for vision.Different types of polarised light are:
1.Plane or linearly polarised light.
2.Circularly polarised light (Right and left circularly polarised light).
3.Elliptically polarised light (Right and left elliptically polarised light).
The light coming from the Sun, candle light, and light emitted by a bulb
is an ordinary light and is known to be unpolarized. In an unpolarized light
electric and magnetic field vectors vibrate in all possible directions perpendicular
to each other and also perpendicular to the direction of propagation of light.

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 Figure 2: Types of Polarization

Unpolarised light can be converted into polarised light.Polariser consists of long

chain of molecules which are aligned in a particular direction. The unpolarised
light can be considered to be composed of two linear orthogonal polarization
states with complete incoherence. When unpolarized light is incident on an
ideal polarizer,the electric vector along the direction of the aligned molecules
gets absorbed and the electric vector oscillating perpendicular to the direction of
aligned molecules gets transmitted and the the intensity of the transmitted light
is one-half of the incident light. Also if the polarizer is rotated w.r.t. incident
light there is no change in the irradiance of the transmitted light i.e. its intensity
remains half of the incident light. The direction along which electric vector of
polarised light is aligned is called optic axis of polariser.Analyser is same as that
of polariser.

Malus Law:
If a completely plane polarised light is incident on an analyser, then the intensity
of the emergent light varies as the square of the cosine of the angle between the
planes of transmission of the polariser and analyser.

Formula:
Intensity of the transmitted light is given by It = A2t = A2o Cos2 θ = Io Cos2 θ
where It is the intensity of the light transmitted through the analyzer, Io is the
intensity of the incident plane polarized light and θ is the angle between the axis
of polarizer and analyser and At andAo are corresponding amplitudes of light.

Working:
1.Firstly, the laser mount is fixed over the optical rail and then laser module is
fixed into the mount .
2.Then, polarizer , analyser are introduced and then detector mount is fixed at
the other end of the optical rail.
3.Pinhole photodiode is introduced into the detector mount,then power supply
of laser is switched on.

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 Figure 3: Malus Law

4.Next, alignment of the instruments is done(by changing the heights so that

the beam falls at the centre of the polariser,analyzer and through pinhole of
diode) that is the polarizer , pinhole photodiode and analyser are normal to the
laser beam and that the beam passes through a “good” portion of the polarizers
– look for minimal scattering,no image forms etc.
5.Next, analyser is removed then by rotating the polarizer we record the maxi-
mum intensity and note it as Io .
6.Next,analyser is introduced .
7.Then with rotating(by 5o ) i.e. the transmission axis of analyser with respect
to the polariser is changed and then the corresponding intensity output at the
photo detector is noted.
8.The light intensity cannot be measured directly. The light energy is converted
into electrical energy using photo detectors such as a photo cell or light depen-
dent resistor (LDR). In such photo detectors the current produced is directly
proportional to the light intensity.
It ∝ current
It = K ∗ current
The constant K appearing here is nothing but the conversion efficiency of photo
detector.

Figure 4: Experimental Set-up

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Observation:
For plot of I vs θ:
For, set-up1:Io = 30.7mA,set-up2:Io = 33.5mA,set-up3:Io = 31.7mA

set-up 0o 5o 10o 15o 20o 25o 30o 35o 40o 45o 50o
1 29.3 29 28.8 28.8 28.7 28.6 28.3 28.1 27.6 26.7 25.3
2 31.7 32 31.7 31.7 31.6 31.5 31.2 31 30.5 30.2 29.4
3 30.4 30.7 30.8 30.6 30.5 30.3 30 29.6 28.8 28.2 27.3

set-up 55o 60o 65o 700 75o 80o 85o 90o 95o 100o 105o
1 22.8 19.6 16 12.2 8.5 5.7 3.4 1.6 .4 0.0 .1
2 28.2 26.1 23.5 20.6 14.4 10 5.8 2.9 1 0 0.1
3 26.3 23.9 20.4 15.1 11.3 7.5 4.5 2 .5 0 .2

set-up 110o 115o 120o 125o 130o 135o 140o 145o 150o 155o
1 .9 2.5 4.7 7.3 10.6 13.9 17.6 21 23.8 25.7
2 1.1 3.3 7.1 10.5 15.7 19.6 24.9 27.1 28.5 29.9
3 1.5 3.3 6.2 9.8 14.7 18.8 22.7 25.2 27.2 28.4

set-up 160o 165o 170o 1750 180o 185o 190o 195o 200o
1 27 27.8 28.2 28.7 28.8 29.3 29 28.9 28.8
2 30.5 30.6 31.6 31.8 31.7 31.7 32.3 32.1 32
3 28.9 29.4 29.8 30.5 30.7 30.9 30.9 30.3 30.1

set-up 205o 210o 215o 2200 225o 230o 235o 240o 245o 250o
1 28.6 28.2 27.8 26.7 25.6 24.6 21.5 18.7 15.6 11.7
2 31.9 31.5 31.1 30.4 29.7 28.6 27.4 26.1 23.7 19.3
3 29.9 29.6 29.3 28.8 28.3 27.6 26.2 23.7 20.0 16

set-up 255o 260o 265o 2700 275o 280o 285o 290o 295o 300o
1 8.6 5.8 3.3 1.7 .5 0.0 0.1 .7 1.8 3.7
2 14.2 9.5 5.7 2.9 .9 0 .1 1 3.4 6.1
3 12 8 5 2.4 .7 0 .1 .8 2.4 4.5

set-up 305o 310o 315o 3200 325o 330o 335o 340o 345o 350o
1 6.3 8.8 12.1 15.3 19.1 22.6 25.3 26.7 27.9 28.5
2 9.5 13.7 18.3 23.2 26.5 28 29.3 29.8 30.8 31.1
3 7.8 11.3 15.4 19 22.9 25.8 27.2 28.5 29.3 29.8

set-up 355o 360o

1 28.8 29.3
2 31.3 31.6
3 30.2 30.5

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 photo detector current vs angular position of analyser

30

25

20

current(I mA)
15

10

set up 1
0 set up 2
set up 3
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
(degrees)

Figure 5: Observation 1

For finding offset angle:

angle 0o 2o 4o 5o 6o 8o 10o 12o
current(mA) 30.7 30.8 30.8 30.9 30.9 31.1 31.7 31.6

angle 14o 15o 16o 18o 20o

current(mA) 31.5 31.4 31.3 31.3 30.9

for checking offset angle

31.6
current I(mA)

31.4

31.2

31.0

30.8

0.0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5 15.0 17.5 20.0

(degrees)
Figure 6: Observation 2

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Discussion:
Laser is a highly monochromatic and coherent source of light and thus is used
in the performing the experiment so that the current we measure does not
fluctuate (as incoherent source of light produces light waves having a different
frequency, wavelength and phase). From the data, recorded current is plotted
against different angles between transmission axes of polariser and analyser. For
set-up1, from the plot it seems that even though the nature of curve represents
that of cos2 θ curve but there is an offset in angle by around 5o − 10o (e.g.
minimum current should be at 90o but we are getting at 100o ).Next for set-up
2, the position of polariser and analyser are interchanged and required data
is recorded.Ideally, it is expected to obtain the same plot but in this case, the
current obtained is higher than the previous set-up.It implies that the absorption
coefficient of the material of the analyser is less than that of polariser.For,set-
up 3 ,the arrangement of the previous set-up is kept and then data is taken.
Nature of curve in all the 3 plots are same and follow that of cos2 θ however,
all of them shows the offset angle of around 5o − 10o .In order to find the offset
angle approximately, we again collected data from 0o − 20o and we get the offset
by 10o .

Precautions:
1.The table where experiment is going to be performed should not have any
slope.
2.Experiment to be performed in moisture and dust free atmosphere (to reduce
scattering).
3.No or minimum background light is present during the experiment (photode-
tectors are highly sensitive).