Transmission of rays through tourmaline is only one of several ways in which light can be polarised. When a beam of light is reflected from a polished surface of glass, wood, ivory, leather, or any other non-metallic substance, at an angle of 50° to 60° with the normal, it is more or less polarised, and in like manner a reflector composed of any of these substances may be employed as an analyser. In so using it, it should be rotated about an axis parallel to the incident rays which are to be tested, and the observation consists in noting whether this rotation produces changes in the amount of reflected light.
For every reflected substance there is a particular angle of incidence, which gives a maximum of polarisation in reflected light. It is called the polarising angle for the substance, and its tangent is always equal to the index of refraction of the substance; or, what amounts to the same thing, it is that particular angle of incidence which is the complement of the angle of refraction, so that the refracted rays are at right angles. This important law was discovered experimentally by Sir David Brewster.
Tourmaline, like Iceland spar, is a negative uniaxial crystal; and its use as a polariser depends on the property which it possesses of absorbing the ordinary much more rapidly than the extraordinary ray, so that a thickness which is tolerably transparent to the latter is almost completely opaque to the former. Its pale cobalt blue colour enhances the beauty of certain crystal and mineral substances, but like Iceland spar, the paler and more perfect crystals are becoming scarce.
Selenite is another mineral of value in polarisation experiments. It is a native crystalline hydrated sulphate of lime. A beautiful fibrous variety called satin-gypsum is found in Derbyshire. The form of the crystal most frequently met with is that of an oblique rectangular prism, with ten rhomboidal faces, two of which are much larger than the rest. It is usually split up into thin laminæ parallel to their lateral faces; each film should have a thickness of from one-twentieth to one-sixtieth of an inch. In the two rectangular directions these films allow perpendicular rays of polarised light to traverse them unchanged, termed their neutral axes. In two other directions, however, which form respectively angles of 45° with the neutral axes, these films have the property of double refraction, a direction known as the depolarising axis.
Fig. 182.—Darker’s Selenite Films and Stage.
The thickness of the film of selenite determines the particular tint. If, therefore, we use a film of irregular thickness, different colours are presented by the different thicknesses. These facts admit of very curious and beautiful illustration, when used under the object placed on the stage of the microscope. The films employed should be mounted between two glasses for protection. Some persons employ a large film, mounted in this way between the plates of glass, with a raised edge, to act as a stage for supporting the object, it is then called the “selenite stage.” The best film for the microscope is that which gives blue, and its complementary colour yellow. The late Mr. Darker constructed a selenite stage for the purpose ([Fig. 182]). With this a mixture of colours will be brought about, by superimposing three films, one on the other. By slight variations in their positions, produced by means of an endless-screw motion, all the colours of the spectrum can be shown. When objects are thus exhibited, it should be borne in mind that all negative tints, as they are termed, are diminished, and all positive tints increased; the effect of which is to mask the true character of the phenomena.
For a certain thickness of selenite the ellipse will become a circle, and we have thus what is called circularly-polarised light, which is characterised by the property that rotation of the analyser produces no change of intensity. Circularly-polarised light is not, however, identical with ordinary light; for the interposition of an additional thickness of selenite converts it into elliptically (or in a particular case into plane) polarised light.
It is necessary, for the exhibition of colour in our experiments, that the plate of selenite should be very thin, otherwise the retardation of one component vibration as compared with the other will be greater by several complete periods for violet than for red, so that the ellipses will be identical for several different colours, and the total non-suppressed light will be sensibly white in all positions of the analyser.
Two thick plates may, however, be so combined as to produce the effect of one thin plate. For example, two selenite plates of nearly equal thickness may be laid one upon the other, so that the direction of greatest elasticity in the one shall be parallel to that of least elasticity in the other. The resultant effect in this case will be that due to the difference of their thicknesses. Two plates so laid are said to be crossed.