Demonstration of Interference of Polarized Light with a Wedge Depolarizer

Shengli Pu

College of Science, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China

A simple experimental configuration for the demonstration of interference of polarized light is presented in this paper. Using the wedge depolarizer, a nice and direct demonstration of interference of polarized light is realized, which would help to impress on students the phenomena of interference of polarized light intuitively. Moreover, this experiment can be easily implemented in the undergraduate/postgraduate optics laboratory because of its simple setup, and there is no need for expensive equipment.