Calibration method using a single retarder to simultaneously measure polarization and fully characterize a polarimeter over a broad range of wavelengths

Abstract

A method has been developed to improve the accuracy with which the polarization state of light can be characterized by the rotating quarter-wave plate technique. Through detailed analysis, verified by experiment, we determine the positions of the optic axes of the retarder and linear polarizer, and the wave plate retardance, to better than 1° for typical signal-to-noise ratios. Accurate determination of the Stokes parameters can be achieved using a single wave plate for a wide range of optical wavelengths using this technique to determine the precise retardance at each of the wavelengths of interest.

Complete Stokes vector analysis with a compact, portable rotating waveplate polarimeter

“…We report a self-contained polarimeter capable of fully characterizing the Stokes vector to within one degree on the Poincaré sphere. Our device provides accuracy comparable to the leading commercial devices for a fraction of the cost without sacrificing size and ease of use as seen in previous noncommercial realizations 7,9,15 . By using a photo-interrupter as a trigger and an Arduino micro controller to perform the calculations and display the results on an LCD, we provide a compact, user-friendly, and cost effective way to quickly and accurately measure the polarization of collimated light.…”

“…This approach relies on measuring the relative amplitudes of the 2ω and 4ω components of the signal, where ω is the angular frequency of the rotating QWP in front of the analyzer 7,8 . However, to fully measure the Stokes vector, the relative angle between the QWP fast axis (FA) and the analyzer transmission axis (TA) must be known for each period of rotation 9 . We use a photo-interrupter and a timing disk to measure the phase of the QWP angle relative to the analyzer for each rotation period.…”

“…Our implementation is thus able to measure any arbitrary input polarization, while resting on only a single standard optical post a) Electronic mail: taw0035@mix.wvu.edu b) Electronic mail: Edward.Flagg@mail.wvu.edu mount. The polarimeter presented here provides advantages in ease of use, functionality, portability, and cost over previous realizations 7,9,10 .…”

“…Accurate calibration and characterization of the device necessitates the production of known polarizations. We use a simplified version of the RLB method 9,17 , which implements iterative rotations about the vertical axis for calibration of the azimuth of an optic to the vertical or horizontal axis. A 180 • rotation of an optic around the vertical axis has no effect on the transmitted light intensity if an optical axis is aligned either horizontally or vertical.…”

Simplified calibration procedure for Mueller polarimeter in transmission configuration

“…Up to now, several methods have been proposed to perform this task [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. In some configurations, such as the spectroscopic Mueller polarimeters and rotating compensator Mueller polarimeters, calibration can be done without reference samples [10,11].…”