When a beam of light passes through a polarized lens, its intensity is cut in half, or I1 = 0.5I0. To further reduce the intensity, you can place another polarized lens in front of it. The intensity of the beam after passing through the second lens depends on the angle of the second filter to the first. For instance, if the second lens is polarized in the same direction, it will have little or no additional effect on the beam of light. If the second lens is rotated so that its axis is ° from the first lens's axis, then the intensity in watts per square meter ( W/m2) of the transmitted beam, I2, is I2 = I1 cos2 where I1 is the intensity in watts per square meter of the incoming beam.
a. A beam of light passes successively through two polarized sheets. The angle between the polarization axes of the filters is 30°. If the intensity of the incoming beam is 16.0 10 -4 W/m2, what is the intensity of the beam after passing through the first filter? The second filter?
b. A polarized beam of light has intensity 3 W/m2. The beam then passes through a second polarized lens and intensity drops to 1.5 W/m2. What is the angle between the polarization axes?
c. At what angle should the axes of two polarized lenses be placed to cut the intensity of a transmitted beam to 0 W/m2?

Transcribed Image Text:

0 Unpolarized light