I applied a drop of a dimethylamide on top of a plastic film (since it expresses birefringence) in order to see if the additive layer would have an effect on polarization by itself. After obtaining images with a polarized light microscope with 20X lens before and after the layer of the dimethylamide. The analysis showed that the additive layer had an influence in polarization intensity increasing it to around 200%. How can I explain this phenomenon?
Thank you
Thin films of different material on certain substrate may be transparent for p-polarization and at the same time fully reflective for s-polarzation. Thin film polarizers are based on this principle. Maybe you observe something like that.
To conclude definitely what is going on, one should have close look on the details: light wavelength range, polarization angles, angles of incidence and reflection, wavelength dependencies of the reflection indices of the substrate and thin filmes on it and thin film thickness as well.
If this liquid has a birefringence, it could be after adding a drop to the plastic film the effective birefringence of the group (liquid + plastic film) increased.
It is known that oriented films can co-orient dissolved molecules. In this case I would expect an increase of the cross-polarization terms which would explain the effect.
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