Anisotropy induced in a silver chloride emulsion by two successive beams of white light perpendicularly polarized

Abstract

This paper is a study of the anisotropy induced in a silver chloride photographic emulsion by two successive beams of white light, linearly polarized at right angle. After the first exposure, the colloidal medium contains silver ellipsoids e generated by the photolysis of silver chloride and silver ellipsoids e b resulting of the partial destruction of some of the previous ones by long wavelengths. This medium is then illuminated by the second beam linearly polarized at right angle of the first beam. Short wavelengths induced silver ellipsoids e′ identical to the ellopsoids e but rotated through π/2 with respect to them. As in the first exposure, some of them are partly broken up and transformed into ellipsoids e′ b identical to ellipsoids e b but the direction of their major axis. Moreover, the long wavelengths of second exposure transform some of the particles e and e b generated during the first exposure, into smaller ellipsoids e eb and e bb. Finally, the colloidal medium resulting of these two exposures, contains silver chloride and six sorts of silver particles. By calculating the indices of the medium, we show that the wavelengths characterizing the zero birefringence and zero dichroism of the emulsion are dependent on the energies recorded during each of the exposures.