Summary New interference phenomena are observed with Newton's rings when the lens and glass plate are coated with high reflecting thin silver films. Very sharp rings are formed in both transmission and reflection, the intensity distribution being analogous to the Fabry-Perot interferometer fringes. Very great precision in measurement can be achieved. In addition, surface errors of less than one-hundredth of a wave-length can easily be detected on lenses. At incidences other than normal, the fringes, which are no longer localized in the interference film, become double. The separation of the doublet increases with the angle of incidence. The doubling is shown to be due to differential phase change at reflection of the light polarized in and perpendicular to the plane of incidence. The components of the doublet are plane polarized at right-angles to each other. With increasing incidence the parallel magnetic vector component becomes steadily weaker. This is shown to be due to a preferential absorption effect. A single thin silver film at non-normal incidence is shown to transmit partially polarized light, agreeing with the above observations. The behaviour of both the reflected and the transmitted systems can be accounted for in detail.
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S. Tolansky (1944) studied this question.