Polar Bear Hair (with polarization)

Feb 17, 2015 • 9:28 AM UTC

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smarion

I work as a Staff Scientist at a science centre in Edmonton, AB, Canada.

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I was very excited to come across this post on modifying the foldscope with polarizing filters:
https://microcosmos.foldscope.com/2015/02/05/experiments-with-cross-polarization-and-fibers/
Since I work in a science centre, there is plenty of polarizing material hanging around but I decided that the easiest thing to do was to punch the lenses out of some old 3D glasses. Then I placed one lens between the LED light module and the foldscope body and the other lens between my phone camera and the foldscope (held in place by the magnets).
I tried to image some dog hair (as suggested by the original post) but my dog’s hair was uninteresting. However, I did have some polar bear hair samples at my desk and here’s what I saw:

I got some mineral samples from my co-worker and I plan to try to image those with the cross-polarization technique. Hopefully, I’ll get some more beautiful images.

Polar Bear Hair (with polarization)

smarion

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