Nicol prism
Prisma de Nicol
- Date
- 1828 · confidence high
- Place
- Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- William Nicol
- Field
- Communication
What it is
Nicol cut and rejoined a rhombohedral crystal of Iceland spar (calcite) glued with Canada balsam so that one ray is totally reflected away and only the other passes through: the first prism able to produce plane-polarised light.
What it led to
- Polarised-light mineralogical and petrographic microscopy ("crossed Nicols")
- 19th-century scientific polarimetry
- Glan-Thompson prisms and Polaroid sheets, which later replaced it