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Polarized light#5: How LCDs work
Hold a pair of polarizing sunglasses in front of a laptop, rotate them very slowly, and you'll soon find an angle where the image you see through the lenses completely disappears! That's because LCD screens work using polarized light: the liquid crystals inside them switch pixels on and off by rotating polarized light. If you stick a polarizing filter (such as a pair of polarizing sunglasses) in front of a laptop screen, you can alter the amount of light that gets through by rotating the angle: you get maximum light at one angle, minimum light at 90 degrees to that angle, and varying amounts at angles in between.
More in our article about how LCDs work.
Our images are published under a Creative Commons Licence (see opposite) and are free for noncommercial use. We also license our images for commercial use. Please contact us directly via our website for more details.
Polarized light#5: How LCDs work
Hold a pair of polarizing sunglasses in front of a laptop, rotate them very slowly, and you'll soon find an angle where the image you see through the lenses completely disappears! That's because LCD screens work using polarized light: the liquid crystals inside them switch pixels on and off by rotating polarized light. If you stick a polarizing filter (such as a pair of polarizing sunglasses) in front of a laptop screen, you can alter the amount of light that gets through by rotating the angle: you get maximum light at one angle, minimum light at 90 degrees to that angle, and varying amounts at angles in between.
More in our article about how LCDs work.
Our images are published under a Creative Commons Licence (see opposite) and are free for noncommercial use. We also license our images for commercial use. Please contact us directly via our website for more details.