Polarized light

KingBigness

When light is emitted from a source it is nearly always unpolarised meaning the E and B fields lie in randomly directed mutually perpendicular planes. When Light goes through a polarising filter it causes the fields to uniform mutually perpendicular planes.

My question is however, once light is polarised can you 'unpolarise' the light? In otherwords can you 'rescatter' the E and B fields?

Matterwave

Sure, reflect the light off a (jaggedy) surface should do the trick.

Cantstandit

Isn't reflected light always polarised?

Andy Resnick

Converting fully polarized light to randomly polarized light is not trivial and generally requires multiple scattering (either from a rough surface, a pair of counter-rotating ground glass plates, or something called a 'scrambler' http://www.klccgo.com/cqmscramb.htm).