Spectroscopic Mueller matrix polarimeter based on spectro-temporal modulation
Naicheng Quan, Chunmin Zhang, Tingkui Mu, Caiyin You
Abstract
A spectroscopic Mueller matrix polarimeter based on spectro-temporal modulation with a compact, low-cost, and birefringent crystal-based configuration has been developed. The polarization state generator and polarization state analyzer in the system consists of a polarizer in front of two high-order retarders with equal thickness and a rotating achromatic quarter wave-plate followed by a fixed analyzer, respectively. It can acquire the 16 spectroscopic elements of the Mueller matrix in broadband with a faster measurement speed than that of the conventional spectroscopic Mueller matrix polarimeter based on a dual-rotating retarder. In addition, the spectral polarization modulation provided by the polarization state generator can produce five separate channels in the Fourier domain, which leads to a larger bandwidth of each channel than that of the existing spectral modulated spectroscopic Mueller matrix polarimeters. Experiment on the measurements of an achromatic quarter-wave plate oriented at different azimuths and SiO 2 thin films deposited on silicon wafers with different thicknesses are carried out to show the feasibility of the developed spectroscopic Mueller matrix polarimeter.