Introduction
The purpose of the lab project is to study how arbitrary polarized light is reflected at the planar interface between a slab of dielectric material and air. It will investigate how the intensity of the reflected light depends on the angle of incidence, for light polarized parallel and perpendicular to the plane of the slab.
During this experiment you will apply the Fresnel equations to analyse the intensity of:
vertically and horizontally polarized red light reflected at a single glass/air interface, and
vertically polarized red light reflected as a result of optical coating/glass/air interfaces.
In the course of your analysis you will determine the refractive index of the glass and the refractive index and thickness of the optical coating. You will achieve this by obtaining the best fit parameters for the Fresnel equations by fitting them to your data using nonlinear fitting.
