Law of Malus

The law of Malus (after Étienne Louis Malus ), more rarely also called Malus' law , describes the intensity I of a linearly polarized wave of the initial intensity I ₀ after passing through an ideal polarizer as a function of the angle by which the optical axis of the polarizer relative to the The direction of polarization of the wave is twisted: ${\displaystyle \alpha }$

${\displaystyle I=I_{0}\cos ^{2}\left(\alpha \right)}$

The transmitted radiation is polarized in the direction of the filter, the remaining intensity (proportional to ) is absorbed in the case of a polarization filter and reflected in the case of a polarizing beam splitter . ${\displaystyle \sin ^{2}\alpha }$

literature

• Jürgen Hüttermann, Alfred Trautwein, Uwe Kreibig: Physics for doctors, biologists, pharmacists. 6., rework. Aufl. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, ISBN 3-11-017839-7 ( limited preview in the Google book search).