Measurement of Pancharatnam’s phase by robust interferometric and polarimetric methods

Abstract

We report theoretical calculations and experimental observations of Pancharatnam's phase originating from arbitrary SU (2) transformations applied to polarization states of light. We have implemented polarimetric and interferometric methods which allow us to cover the full Poincaré sphere. As a distinctive feature, our interferometric array is robust against mechanical and thermal disturbances, showing that the polarimetric method is not inherently superior to the interferometric one, as previously assumed. Our strategy effectively amounts to feed an interferometer with two copropagating beams that are orthogonally polarized with respect to each other. It can be applied to different types of standard arrays, like a Michelson, a Sagnac, or a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We exhibit the versatility of our arrangement by performing measurements of Pancharatnam's phases and fringe visibilities that closely fit the theoretical predictions. Our approach can be easily extended to deal with mixed states and to study decoherence effects.

Interferometric characterization of the structured polarized light beam produced by the conical refraction phenomenon

“…it shows inhomogenous polarization structure, special care is necessary to avoid misinterpretation of the results due to additional Pancharatnam-Berry geometric phases [28][29][30] arising from the different polarizations in the reference and sample beams. On its turn, measurement of the geometric phase can be accomplished by using interferometers or polarimeters [31].…”

Measuring the Mueller matrix of an arbitrary optical element with a universal SU(2) polarization gadget

“…al. have used SM gadget [15]. However, in the present study, we have used it to find out the Mueller matrix of a given optical element.…”

Nonlinear behavior of geometric phases induced by photon pairs

“…There have been many interesting studies on the observation of the geometric phase [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Schmitzer et al [19] reported that the variation of the geometric phase exhibits extraordinary nonlinearity associated with post-selection.…”