Tuesday 23 June 2015

optics - Is the output of a laser pointer polarized or not?


How to verify it?



Is a laser necessarily polarized?


I have a laser pointer with wavelength 532nm in hand.



Answer



No, laser light is not necessarily polarized.


There are many different types of lasers. In gas lasers, many different modes may be excited in the cavity, but only modes that are not very lossy end up being amplified and emitted - this can result in a single polarization. However, there may be multiple modes with different polarizations that have this property, resulting in a more random polarization. There also may or may not be a polarizing filter built in to the laser aperture. I don't know as much about other types of lasers, but I don't think they all are necessarily polarized.


You could test whether or not your laser is polarized by getting a polarizing film (for example polarized sunglasses). Shine the laser through the film while rotating the film. If the intensity of the transmitted beam changes when you rotate the film, then it is at least partially polarized.


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