Sensing system with USB camera for experiments of polarization of the light

Abstract

This work shows a sensor system for educational experiments, composed of a USB camera and a software developed and provided by the authors. The sensor system is suitable for the purpose of studying phenomena related to the polarization of the light. The system was tested in experiments performed to verify the Malus’ Law and the spectral efficiency of polarizers. Details of the experimental setup are shown. The camera captures the light in the visible spectral range from a LED that illuminates a white screen after passing through two polarizers. The software uses the image captured by the camera to provide the relative intensity of the light. With the use of two rotating H-sheet linear polarizers, a linear fitting of the Malus’s Law to the transmitted light intensity data resulted in correlation coefficients R larger than 0.9988. The efficiency of the polarizers in different visible spectral regions was verified with the aid of color filters added to the experimental setup. The system was also used to evaluate the intensity time stability of a white LED.

Keywords

• detecção de luz
• polarização
• lei de malus