Make Your Own Polarizers from Gel Glue!

Warning!
The following procedure must be supervised by an adult.  Undo respect of any household material is dangerous.  Take special care to protect your eyes with goggles and not to burn yourself.

Considering that Edwin Land developed them in his apartment and first patented their production in 1935, it is not surprising that all the materials needed to make optical polarizers are available at your local X-MART:

• Materials

  • Goggles

  • Gel glue

  • A plastic CD cover

  • Rubbing alcohol

  • An eye dropper

  • Scissors

  • Two irons

  • Clamps

  • Someway to hold onto an upside-down iron?

  • Clear packing tape

  • Two small aluminum trays

  • Tweezers

  • Iodine

  • Boric acid

  • Water

  • A measuring apparatus

• Procedure:

  • Put on the goggles to protect your eyes!

  • Coat the inside of a plastic CD cover with gel glue.

  • 

  • Allow to dry for a two or three days.

  • Peal dried gel glue from CD cover and cut into one inch strips.

  • Stabilize one iron upside down with clamps.

  • Place the other iron on top of the first iron and heat to approximately 180 degrees Celsius.  Be careful not to burn yourself!

  • Place one of the gel glue strips between the irons, and while applying a small amount of pressure, pull the strip slowly from between the irons stretching it. 

  • 

  • "Laminate" one side of the strip by placing it on to a piece of packing tape, smooth side up.  This makes the gel glue strip clearer and keeps the gel glue from dissolving when it is covered with Iodine.  Remember it is water soluble!

  • Coat the gel glue strip with Iodine.

    

    • Allow some gel strips to dry for a day at this point.

    • Fill an aluminum tray with a small amount of Boric acid and dip some of the Iodine covered strip into the acid.  Now allow these gel glue strips to dry for a day as well.  The Boric acid makes the polarizer darker.

  • "Laminate" the other side of the gel glue strip with packing tape to create your polarizer!

  • 

Friday, October 12, 2007

jsal at utep dot edu