Complete Stokes polarimeters based on liquid cristal displays

A. PEINADO; A. LIZANA; J. VIDAL; CLAUDIO IEMMI; J. CAMPOS

San Diego

Congreso; Optics and Photonics for Information Processing IV; 2010

SPIE

In this work, we present the design, optimization and experimental implementation of complete Stokes polarimeters based on parallel aligned and twisted nematic liquid crystal displays. The liquid crystal elements are used as variable retarders whose retardance depends on the addressed voltage. By including this type of anisotropic devices in the polarimeter design we obtain some benefits when compared to mechanical polarimeters. For example, they allow to avoid the corresponding uncertainty due to mechanical movement. In addition, among the different polarimeter configurations provided by the polarimeter design, we have also applied an optimization procedure based on the minimization of different mathematical indicators (as the condition number or the equally weighted variance) in order to minimize the error amplification from the radiometric measurements to the solution. Finally, the optimized polarimeters are experimentally implemented and tested. In the implementation process, the eigenvalues method (a rigorous calibration procedure) is used.