PHYS 331 - Section AA Lab 08 - November, 25th 2019

Reflection of Light at an Air/Dielectric Interface Lab

Justin Cunningham | Jesse Hernandez | Ryan Littrell

Motivation/Objective:
The purpose of this lab was to understand and demonstrate how the reflection of light
from a dielectric surface strongly depends on the angle of incidence of the light and the direction
of polarization. We compared data collected to Fresnel equations, which express the intensity of
light reflected from a dielectric surface as a function of angle of incidence, the dielectric
constants of the media (air and BK-7 glass (prism) in our case) on either side of the surface, and
direction of polarization. From our comparison, we estimated the indexes of refraction of the
BK-7 glass, and compared that value to the manufacturer rating. On a practical level, this lab can
help us understand the design in Polaroid sunglasses and how they eliminate glare from
reflected, polarized light.

Experimental Method:

Figure 1: Experimental Setup

 The experiment was set up as shown in figure 1, with an uncoated prism. For our
experiment, we had two filters and a polarizer that we interchangeably used when measuring our
light intensity. The two filters were red (ƛ = 648 nm) and green (ƛ = 541 nm), and the polarizer
was either place fully up or fully down. The digital multimeter and light source were powered
on, and the current on the light’s power source was set to 4.6 Amps.
An alignment check was made on the spectrometer using the eyepiece on the viewing
telescope and the green filter in place. The prism was removed, and the viewing telescope was
made parallel with the collimating telescope. After ensuring the iris at the end of the collimating
telescope was open to about 6 mm, we centered the cross-hairs of the eyepiece on the disk of
green light visible by adjusting the viewing telescope. Next we aligned the inner and outer angle
scales on the spectrometer. While looking through the scale magnifier, we moved the two plates
until the 180° mark on the outer scale with the 0° mark on the inner scale were aligned.
After this alignment was completed, we removed the eyepiece, replaced it with the
photodiode housing, and powered on the reflected light and reference detector readout devices.
With all the lights in the experiment area turned off, curtains drawn, and both the red and green
filter places in the light path, we zeroed out the readings on the readout devices using the zero
and offset knobs. The red filter was flipped out of the light path (green filter was still in the light
path), and we observed that the light intensity was about 15 nA, which was in range for our
experiment. At this point, the light current had stabilized at 4.34 Amps.
Next, we ensured that each current readout read at least three digits of accuracy on each
meter for all four possible combinations of filter color and polarizer as shown in Table 1.
Following this we took readings for all four possible combinations of filter color and polarizer at
an incidence angle of 90°. The incident angle was found by subtracting the angle reading on
scale B from 360°, and dividing by 2. When using scale A, the incident angle was found by
dividing the Scale A measurement by 2 and subtracting that from 90°. After taking the readings,
the uncoated prism, eyepiece, and green filter were put back in place, and the prism support
piece was rotated so that the light from the collimating telescope hit the prism at an angle of
incidence of about 45°.
A white index card was held up to the prism surface to check that the disk of green light
was incident on the prism at about mid-height. The viewing telescope was then pushed as close
as possible to the collimating telescope, and the prism was rotated again until the reflected disk
of green light is visible in the eyepiece. This condition was then checked at various angular
positions of the prism. Once all alignments were complete, and the experiment area was made as
dark as possible, we began recording our measurements of reflected and reference light intensity
for all four combinations of filters and polarizer as shown in Table 1. We started at an incident
angle of 20°, and incremented by 5° (incrementing angle reading on scale B by 10°) each
measurement until we reached 80° for a total of 14 measurements, including our 90° reference
angle.
Raw Data:

Table 1: Angle and intensity measurements

Polarizer Down: Polarizer Up:

Red Filter in Light Green Filter in Light Red Filter in Light Green Filter in Light
Path Path Path Path

Incident Reference Reflected Reference Reflected Reference Reflected Reference Reflected

angle: Light Light Light Light Light Light Light Light
Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity Intensity
(°) (µA) (nA) (µA) (nA) (µA) (nA) (µA) (nA)

90 0.312 80.98 0.052 14.28 0.275 68.6 0.050 12.922

20 0.284 3.790 0.052 0.713 0.275 2.577 0.050 0.461

25 0.282 4.343 0.051 0.786 0.274 2.297 0.050 0.412

30 0.282 4.845 0.051 0.868 0.274 1.957 0.050 0.351

35 0.279 5.520 0.051 0.988 0.274 1.552 0.050 0.279

40 0.283 6.435 0.052 1.151 0.274 1.122 0.050 0.201

45 0.282 7.601 0.051 1.361 0.275 0.274 0.050 0.049

50 0.280 11.455 0.050 2.035 0.276 0.020 0.050 0.003

55 0.280 14.456 0.051 2.581 0.277 0.116 0.050 0.019

60 0.279 18.580 0.050 3.310 0.276 0.913 0.050 0.158

65 0.279 20.2 0.051 4.336 0.275 3.051 0.050 0.536

70 0.279 28.3 0.051 5.749 0.276 7.749 0.050 1.369

75 0.278 39.2 0.051 7.697 0.275 17.200 0.050 3.046

80 0.277 49.5 0.050 9.535 0.275 28.9 0.050 5.824

Results and Analysis:

Normalization:
By first dividing each detector measurement by its associated reference measurement and then
dividing each of those measurements by the associated normalized measurement at 90◦ incidence
the following table is obtained:
Table 2: Normalized angle and intensity measurements

Polarizer Down: Polarizer Up:

Incident Normalized Normalized Normalized Normalized
Reflected Reflected Reflected Reflected
angle: Light Light Light Light
(°) Intensity: Red Intensity: Green Intensity: Red Intensity: Green
(x10​-3​) (x10​-3​) (x10​-3​) (x10​-3​)

20 51.416 49.930 37.566 35.676

25 59.336 56.121 33.606 31.884

30 66.194 61.976 28.632 27.163

35 76.227 70.544 22.707 21.591

40 87.607 80.602 16.415 15.555

45 103.848 97.177 3.994 3.792

50 157.621 148.207 0.291 0.232

55 198.915 184.286 1.679 1.470

60 256.577 241.064 13.261 12.227

65 278.959 309.595 44.475 41.480

70 390.804 410.485 112.550 105.943

75 543.273 549.574 250.729 235.722

80 688.497 694.426 421.283 450.704

 For our reflectance curves of red and green with the polarizer up (R​ll​), the minimum point
on each curve is near the 55° angle data point, as shown in figure 2 and 4. From this observation,
we estimated an uncertainty of this minimum to be ± 5°. This is our estimated Brewster’s angle
(θ​p​). Using Equation 1, we determined an estimated value for the index of refraction (n​t​) and
propagated our uncertainty. This equation was found in Hecht 8.6. Here, n​i​ = 1.

nt
tan(θp ) = ni Eq. 1

nt = 1.43 ± 0.09

We found the index of refraction (n​t​) by performing the second method recommended by
the lab write up. We estimated the value of the index of refraction n​t​ by varying its value and
observing the resulting curve for R​∥​. We plotted our data points alongside this range of n​t
substituted into Equation 3. The three values of n​t​ used were 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5. The 1.4 value
lined up with our data points for green and red wavelength the best, making that our n​best​ with an
uncertainty of ±0.1. For R​⟂​, we kept our value of n​t​ = 1.4 constant in Equation 2. We adjusted
parameters a and b until its best fit our data points for both R​∥​ and R​⟂​. Equations 2 and 3 were
given in the lab write up.

2
R⟂ = a ( cos(θ)−√ n2 −sin2 (θ)
cos(θ)+√n2 −sin2 (θ) ) +b Eq. 2

2
R∥ = a ( n2 cos(θ)−√n2 −sin2 (θ)
n2 cos(θ)+√n2 −sin2 (θ) ) +b Eq. 3

nt = 1.4 ± 0.1
Figure 2: Graph of intensity vs angle for Green light with Polarizer up. y axis is unitless due to
normalization. Here our a and b parameters are 1.8 and 0, respectively.

From the Graph the line fit at n=1.4 seemed to match the data the best, and as per the lab
write up the other two line fits represent the uncertainty.
⇒ ngreen = 1.4 ± 0.1
Figure 3: Graph of intensity vs angle for Green light with Polarizer down. y axis is unitless due
to normalization. Here a parameter is 1.9, and our b parameters are shown on the graph.

For this graph we kept the n value of 1.4 from the polarizer up graph and adjusted the b
value to match the data.
Figure 4: Graph of intensity vs angle for Red light with Polarizer up. y axis is unitless due to
normalization. Here our a and b parameters are 1.8 and 0, respectively.

From the Graph the line fit at n=1.4 seemed to match the data the best, and as per
the lab write up the other two line fits represent the uncertainty.
⇒ ngreen = 1.4 ± 0.1
Figure 5: Graph of intensity vs angle for Red light with Polarizer down. y axis is unitless due to
normalization. Here our a parameter 1.9, and our b parameters are shown on the graph.

For this graph we kept the n value of 1.4 from the polarizer up graph and adjusted the b
value to match the data.
Discussion:

Index of refraction from manufacturer for green light, ƛ=546.1nm (n​t​): 1.51472
Index of refraction from manufacturer for red light ƛ=643.8nm (n​t​): 1.51872

Our experiment saw an index of refraction of 1.4 ± 0.1 as the fit that best fit our data.
With the calculated standard deviation, we see that our answer is around one standard deviation
of the indices of refraction from the manufacturer (7.6% and 7.8% off for green and red light).
This means that our answer is sound and that we performed the experiment accurately, but that
some of our methods were not as precise as they could have been, and the random error was
most likely the largest contributor.

One instance of Random error that we saw was that each time we moved the viewing
telescope, we had to center the light in the crosshairs of the viewer. This was done by eye, and
therefore was not exact, nor the same for each angle. However we were able to center it well
enough that it did not cause too much error. An additional source of random error came from
rotating the inner and outer plates. As we aligned them we used a magnifier to make sure that
were at the exact angle we wanted. This was done by eye and so there was some small error
associated with it. The plate had a vernier scale with arcminutes and arcseconds, and so we were
able to use the magnifier to achieve an angle that was very close to 10 degrees away from the last
angle that we used. One more random error instance is the issue of environmental light that
impacted the photodiode. We used the curtains to try and shield our experiment from as much
outside light as possible, but sometimes the curtains would move, or the group next to us would
turn on their lights and our curtains were not sufficient enough to block out all of their light. All
of these factors could have contributed to cause our final result to be slightly more than one
standard deviation away from the manufacturer’s values.

Systematic Error is not as clear because our final answer was around one standard
deviation away from the manufacturers values, and therefore acceptable. A possible source could
be from the quality of prism, since many other groups have done this experiment before us, we
don’t know how well they treated the prism or if they might have made a small smudge on it.
That would have impacted our results and caused a change in what we calculated for the index of
refraction, because the prism would not have refracted the light as uniformly.