Polarization

Your team is working in an optical research laboratory. Part of the apparatus you are working on involves polarized beams of light. Your supervisor wants to rotate the plane of polarization of one polarized beam by 45.0°. She can do that by inserting a single polarizer at 45.0° to the plane of polarization of the original beam, but, according to Malus’s law, she then loses 50% of the intensity of the light. She gives you the task of designing a stack of polarizers, each with its axis at the same angle with the axis of the previous polarizer, that will rotate the plane of polarization of the beam without losing more than 10.0% of the intensity of the original beam. She wants to know by quitting time tonight (a) how many polarizers she needs in the stack and (b) the angle between adjacent polarizers.