Section 1.6.4.4. Vibration directions

For the microscopist, the overriding feature of the behaviour of light transmitted through crystals is double refraction. Many of the observations that can be made with the polarizing microscope depend on the ability to distinguish the individual properties of the two rays. In general, they have different refractive indices, and in coloured crystals they may show different absorptions (i.e. the rays show different colours after transmission, the phenomenon known as pleochroism – see Fig. 1.6.4.1).

Figure 1.6.4.1 | top | pdf | A thin section of a rock containing the minerals aegirine (elongated crystals) and eudyalite (the matrix) viewed in plane-polarized light in two positions at right angles to each other [(a) and (b)]. Aegirine shows pleochroism from grass-green to yellow–green (compare specific crystals in the two photographs). Eudyalite shows pleochroism from pink to almost colourless.

When the microscope is used for observations in plane-polarized light, the polarizer is inserted into the optical path but the analyser is not. The light before entering the crystal is polarized E–W. On entry, in the general case where the vibration directions of the crystal happen to lie in a random orientation relative to the vibration direction of the polarizer, the light is transmitted as two rays resolved into the two vibration directions of the specimen. These reach the observer's eye unchanged, and the effects observed are an average of what each ray would individually demonstrate.

Two cases can be used to illustrate this fundamental concept. The mineral calcite (CaCO₃) is always given as an example of extreme double refraction. In sections cut parallel to the c crystallographic axis, the two rays have refractive indices of 1.486 and 1.658, and this is the maximum difference they can show. Crystals in other orientations always show a smaller difference. The numerical difference between the two refractive indices, when we have identified the maximum difference, is what is quoted as the birefringence of the mineral, and for calcite it is unusually large (0.172) by the standards of other commonly occurring minerals (cf. quartz = 0.009). Birefringence is an important quantitative optical property, because in thin sections it is easily measurable. It is also useful to refer to the birefringence of individual grains, but this should not be confused with the use of the same term, based on maximum birefringence, as a diagnostic optical property of the material concerned.

Consider a calcite crystal lying with its c axis in the plane of the microscope slide. The vibration directions are parallel and at right angles to the crystallographic axis. On rotation of the stage, the c axis may be brought into parallelism with the vibration direction of the polarizer, in which case all the light is transmitted using only one of the vibration directions, which in this case has a refractive index of 1.486. On turning the stage through a right angle, all the effects seen are completely due to the other ray, with a refractive index of 1.658. The mounting medium in standard thin-section preparations has a refractive index of ca 1.54. Hence, in the first position there is quite a large contrast between the refractive index of the crystal grain and the mounting medium, and in the other it is considerably smaller. Calcite is usually a highly transparent and virtually colourless substance, and whether the observer can even see the crystals depends on the refractive index difference between it and the mounting medium. In the first case, it is highly visible and in the second case it is harder to see. It is of course the roughness of the surface of the thin section, or the angularities of the form of the crushed crystal, which create small refractions, if there is a refractive-index contrast between it and the mounting medium, and thus make the crystal visible. The general property is known as relief. High relief means highly visible in this sense. Calcite shows such extreme changes in relief on rotation of the stage that the phenomenon is known as twinkling. Relief is not a measurable property, but to the experienced microscopist it is a subtle and useful guide to identification.

As a second example consider the mineral biotite, which shows extremely strong pleochroism. Biotite is for practical purposes a hexagonal mineral having a platy form dominated by a strong cleavage on (001.1). In thin sections, biotite crystals cut across the cleavage, i.e. parallel to the direction [00.1], are typically very dark brown in plane-polarized light when the cleavage lies parallel to the polarizer direction. When turned through 90°, the same crystals are only a very pale brown, pale yellow, or almost colourless. The colour contrast, a consequence of the different absorbing properties of the two rays, is striking. Examples of pleochroism are shown in Fig. 1.6.4.1.

From these examples it should be clear that the different rays show different things. However, the microscopist needs to be certain that the observations made refer exactly to one ray or the other. When the analyser is inserted into the optical path, most crystals (excluding those of the cubic system, and crystallites lying in special orientations) will show polarization colours, a consequence of the interference between the two rays once they are recombined vibrating in the analyser plane. Details will be discussed below, but for the present purpose it is the extinction position that is of importance. On rotation, a crystal viewed with both analyser and polarizer in position (a configuration known as crossed Nicols, after the Nicol prism, the forerunner of Polaroid) will transmit no light in two positions at right angles to each other. This happens when the vibration direction of a transmitted ray coincides with that of the polarizer. In this case, all the light transmitted through the crystal vibrates in a single direction, at right angles to the vibration direction of the analyser, and it is consequently unable to reach the observer. Thus, for all observations of the effects of a particular ray, crossing the polars (inserting the analyser), turning the stage to an extinction position, and then uncrossing the polars (removing the analyser) leaves the specimen showing the pure effects of whichever ray vibrates in the same direction as the polarizer. Much that follows depends on this simple operation.