Transmission Through a Series of Optical Elements

The five important arrangements of the optical train are listed 

Four optical elements in series. lite first element is a linear polarizer oriented along the y axis. The last element is a linear polarizer oriented at an angle 0 to the y axis. 

Here we assume that the quarter-wave plate is correctly aligned to give circularly polarized light. This means that the fast and slow axes are oriented at 45 to the y axis the incident y-polarized beam is equivalent to two equal-amplitude, equal-phase beams oriented at 43° to the y axis. In this case, it should be 

Transmitted intensities from a series of optical elements, as described in the text. 

This is the typical experimental configuration for birefringence measurements on liquids. It is, in fact, a special case of Fig- 

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