Wings of InterferencePraadhyumn IndaanaAward: Top 100
School: stanford online high school I constructed this image's pattern by layering strips of Scotch tape onto a piece of plexiglass. While arranging the pieces at different angles, I placed the setup in front of an LCD screen. I then viewed the setup using a polarizing filter placed over the camera lens. The LCD screen emits linearly polarized light, which is typically blocked by the second polarizer--resulting in a dark background. However, Scotch tape is birefringent. This means that, depending on the molecular orientation, the material has different refractive indices along different directions. The incident beam of polarized light is divided into two rays, each traveling at different speeds, which causes a phase delay between them. This phase shift alters the polarization of each wavelength of light. Some are rotated enough to pass through the second polarizer, while others are blocked--producing interference colors. The number of tape layers and the thickness of each layer are also a contributing factor to why the interference colors change. Regions with significant overlap show sharp phase shifts, thus producing the multicolored patterns with stark contrast in color. This phenomenon shows how an ordinary material such as scotch tape can be seen in a complex and vibrant way, with the right lens. The usage of polarizing filters has the power to turn mundane structures into sophisticated pieces of art, which are normally invisible to the human eye. 
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