Polarization and the Stokes Parameters in Techniques for Digital Speckle Pattern Correlation

ROBERTO TORROBA

New Directions in Holography and Speckle

ASP

Lugar: Stevenson Ranch, California, USA; Año: 2008; p. 285 - 303

Historically, the evaluation of light polarization was used in many branches of science to extract information out of excited systems. Light emitted from a certain system may be just the scattering of incident light of a given polarization [1] or the system may have been excited by some other means. These studies are very important. The polarization state of the emitted light in general provides information on a variety of spatial anisotropies of the excited system. Basically, polarization can be catalogued into a general situation described as elliptically polarized light, including two particular cases of importance: (a) when polarization ellipse degenerates into a straight line, called linear polarization, and (b) when the ellipse degenerates into a circle, called circular polarization. Among the areas of research in optics, the investigation on the ropagation of laser light in random media has proven to be a useful tool in the comprehension of the fundamental properties of light. Seeing this, we should not be surprised to find that laser light has become an incomparable source of illumination, providing exciting new features to understand the interaction between light and matter.elliptically polarized light, including two particular cases of importance: (a) when polarization ellipse degenerates into a straight line, called linear polarization, and (b) when the ellipse degenerates into a circle, called circular polarization. Among the areas of research in optics, the investigation on the ropagation of laser light in random media has proven to be a useful tool in the comprehension of the fundamental properties of light. Seeing this, we should not be surprised to find that laser light has become an incomparable source of illumination, providing exciting new features to understand the interaction between light and matter.