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Let's say I'll send linearly polarized light onto double slit but in front of one slit I'll have quarter wave plate and before the other I'll have 3/4th wave plate (half+quarter? minus quarter?) oriented in such way that the light will get polarized clock-wise before going into first slit, and counter clock-wise before going into the other.

Will I still get interference pattern (not just diffraction patter from each separate slit)?

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Circular polarisation can be though of as a horizontally polarised wave together with a vertically polarised wave which is $\frac \pi 2$ out of phase with the horizontally polarised wave.

With the two slit arrangement that you have described let the horizontal components of the circularly polarised light from each slit be in phase with one another and these components would produce an interference pattern with a maximum at the centre.

The vertical components of the circularly polarised light from each slit would be $\frac \pi 2 + \frac \pi 2 = \pi$ out of phase with one another and so would produce a minimum at the centre.

So the two components from each slit can be thought of as producing two interference patterns one of which is shifted by half a fringe relative to the other.

So no fringes would be seen.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you. That's exactly what I thought. So the only way to get interference pattern out of this setup would be to shine linearly polarized light but with 45 deg orientation so that quarter wave plates either slow down whole of it or none of it and won't create opposite circular polarization. Is that correct? $\endgroup$
    – Kamil Szot
    Commented Apr 3, 2016 at 9:12

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