PHYSICS INVESTIGATORY PROJECT

HUYGEN’S PRINCIPLE AND POLARISATION OF LIGHT

Submitted to:

Central Board of Secondary Education

Academic year: 2022-23

Under the guidance of:
Mr. Arunachalam.P.L M.Sc.,M.Phil.,B.Ed
Department of Physics

Project done by:

C.JAGADEEP
XII-A1

Senthil Public School

Affiliated of CBSE, New Delhi, Affiliation No. 1930752

Adhiyamankottai, Dharmapuri - 636807

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I undertook this project work, as the part of my class XII Physics course. I had tried to
apply my best of knowledge and experience, gained during the study and class work
experience.

I would like to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to my physics teacher Mr.Harish
Babu, M.Tech and Mr. Arunachalam. P.L, M.Sc., M.Phil., B.Ed. and my lab teacher
Mrs.Kanimozhi, B.Ed for their incessant help in all possible way from beginning and
their positive approach towards the completion of project.

I am very much thankful to our Senior Principal Shri. C Srininvasan, M.Sc., M.Ed.,
and our Principal Mr. P Senthil Murugan, M.Sc., B.Ed., GNIIT for giving valuable
time and moral support to develop this project. I extend my gratitude to our Vice
Principal Mr. S.Rajkumar, M.Sc., B.Ed., M.Phil. and Academic Coordinator
Mrs.Gnanakavita M, M.Sc., B.Ed. for their guidance and support throughout my
project completion.

I would like to take the opportunity to extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to my
parents for being a source of inspiration and providing time and freedom to do this
project. I also feel indebted to my friends for the valuable suggestions during the project
work.

C.JAGADEEP

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HUYGEN’S PRINCIPLE AND
POLARISATION OF LIGHT

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 INDEX
S.No. Topic Page No

1. Certificate 02

2. Acknowledgment 03

3. Introduction 05

4. Polarisation 10

5. Uses of polarisation 12

6. Types of polarisation 13

7. Malus law 14

8. Brewster’s law 16

9. Discussion 18

10. Bibliography 19

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Introduction:

Huygen’s principle:

“Every point on the wavefront is in itself the source of

spherical wavelets which spread out in the forward direction at the
speed of light. The sum of these spherical wavelets forms the
wavefront.”

As per the Huygen’s principle, all the points on the wavefront are
going to become secondary sources emit wavelets. Tangents drawn
to all the wavelets is the new position of the waveform.

This means that, suppose you are standing on the mountain and you
throw a stone in the water from a height. What do we observe? You
see that the stone strikes the surface of the water and waves are

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seen surrounding that point. Every point on the surface of water
starts oscillating .

The waves spread in all direction. Earlier the water was at rest, but
the moment we throw the stone in water, within a few fractions of
seconds the disturbance spreads in all directions. There are the
ripples formed in the water. The ripples form the concentric circle
around the disturbance and spread out.

These ripples are nothing but the wavefront. The wavefronts

gradually spread in all directions. So at every point we have a wave
coming out. The primary wavefront is formed and again from the
primary wavefront, a secondary waveform is formed and so on.
The disturbance does not last for a long time. It fades gradually
because more and more waveforms are formed. But however this
principle explains polarisation of light due this principle is valid for
transverse wave only , that is Huygen believed light was made up
of waves vibrating up and down perpendicular to the direction of
wave propagation.

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According to huygen’s principle light needs a medium to propagate
called ether, which is highly elastic and less dense.

There are 7 basic properties of wave nature of light

1. Reflection of light -
When a beam of light falls on a smooth shiny surface, it
bounces off in one particular direction. This bouncing off of
light is called as reflection of light.
2. Refraction of light -
The bending of light as it passes from one transparent
substance into another is called as refraction of light.
3. Dispersion of light -
When white is passed through a glass prism it splits into its
spectrum of light in the order of violet, indigo, blue, green,
yellow, orange and red is called as dispersion of light.
4. Scattering of light -
When a white light from sun enters the earth’s atmosphere,
the light spreads in all directions by the dust particles, free
water molecules and the molecules of the gases present in the
atmosphere. This is known as scattering of light.
5. Interference of light –
When two light waves from different coherent sources meet
together, then the distribution of energy due to one wave is
disturbed by the other. This modification in the distribution of

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 light energy due to super position of two light waves is called
interference of light.
6. Diffraction of light -
Bending of waves around the corners of an obstacle or
through an aperture into the region of geometrical shadow of
the obstacle or aperture is known as diffraction of light.
7. Polarisation of light-
The phenomenon of restricting the oscillations of a wave in
just in one direction in transverse plane is called polarisation
of light wave.

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There are 5 important wave property of light

1. Amplitude –
The maximum displacement of the wave from the mean
position is amplitude
2. Frequency –
The number of vibrations passing a fixed point in a given
amount of time is frequency
3. Wavelength –
The distance between two identical points is wavelength
4. Time period –
The time taken by a complete wave to pass through a
particular point is time period.
5. Speed The
distance travelled by a particular point on the wave in the
given interval of time.

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Polarisation of light:

Light is the interaction of electric fields and magnetic fields

travelling through the space. The electric and magnetic vibrations
of the light wave occur perpendicularly to each other. The electric
field moves in one direction and the magnetic field in another
perpendicular to it, and the direction of propagation are
perpendicular to each other.

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A light wave that is vibrating in more than one plane is known as
unpolarised light. The light emitted by the sun, by a lamp or a tube
light are all unpolarised light sources. As you can see in the image
below, the direction of propagation is constant but the planes on
which the amplitude occurs are changing.

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Uses of Polarisation:

 Polarisation is used in sunglasses to reduce the glare.

 Polaroid filters are used in plastics industries for performing
stress analysis tests.
 Three dimensional movies are produced and shown with the
help of polarisation.
 Polarisation is used for differentiating between transverse and
longitudinal waves.
 In chemistry, the chirality of organic compounds is tested
using polarisation techniques.
 In cricket the fielder use to wear glasses to prevent the entry
of unpolarised to eyes.
 Light reflected from surfaces like a flat road or smooth water
is generally horizontally polarized. The horizontally polarised
light is blocked by the vertically oriented polarisers in the
lenses.

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Types of Polarisation:

Linear Polarization: In linear polarization, the electric field of

light is limited to a single plane along the direction of propagation.

Circular Polarization: There are two linear components in the

electric field of light that are perpendicular to each other such that
their amplitudes are equal, but the phase difference is π/2. The
propagation of the occurring electric field will be in a circular
motion

Elliptical Polarization: The electric field of light follows an

elliptical propagation. The amplitude and phase difference between
the two linear components are not equal.

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Malus law

When a beam of completely plane polarized light is passed through

analyser, the intensity of transmitted light varies directly as the
square of the cosine of angle ϴ between the transmissions direction
of polarizer and analyser. This is called as Malus law.

I’=I0/2 where I0 is unpolarised light intensity

I’’= (I0/2) cos2 ϴ where ϴ is angle between the analyser

and polariser

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Polariser:

A device that plane polarises when the unpolarized light passed

through it is called polariser.

Analyser:

It is an optical device used for producing and analysing plane

polarised light [Nicol prisms]

Polaroid:

It is a thin commercial sheet in the form of a circular disc which

makes the use of property of selective absorption to produce an
intense beam of plane polarised light.

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Brewster’s angle:

The angle of incidence at which a beam of unpolarised light falling

on a transparent surface is reflected as a beam of completely plane
polarized light. This angle is known as Brewster’s angle or
polarised angle.

μ=tan (ϴb).

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Example:

The vibrations of a wave are present in just one direction in a

plane perpendicular to the direction of propagation is said to be
plane polarized.

When we go out in a hot sunny day, the rate of plane polarised

light is more due to more number of transverse waves arising from
the sun. These waves are unpolarized and give us a feel of glare.
Wearing goggles can produce polarised waves which have less
intensity than unpolarised waves.

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Discussion:

Thus in this project we have concluded that polarised light has

less intensity when compared with the unpolarised light by
validating Malus law and also the angle between completely
polarised light and partially unpolarised light (refracted ray) is 90◦.
This was concluded through Brewster’s law and these two key
concepts are basis for polarisation of any light.

Bibliography:
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1. NCERT Textbook Class XII Physics

2. Saraswati lab manual Class XII

3. toppr.com

4. https://byjus.com

5. https://oxscience.com

6. https://www.slideshare.net

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