In the experiment put the optical components in the given order-Laser source, polarizer, wave plate, analyzer, detector.

Align the laser source such that the beam perfectly falls on the detector to get proper intensity measurements.

Then start taking the measurements of intensity by varying the angle on the wave plate for a half wave plate.

After the half wave plate is finished a quarter wave plate is put and the maximum and minimum intensity measurement is taken by rotating the analyzer.

Then the difference between the maximum and minimum is calculated and the one with almost constant difference is taken to have been converting linear to circular polarization.

After wave plate characteristics is done, the circularly, linearly and elliptically polarized light is used and intensity variation with angle is checked for each of them.