Experimental validation of the reverse polar decomposition of depolarizing Mueller matrices

Abstract

We experimentally assess the validity of the reverse polar decomposition (R. Ossikovski et al., Opt. Lett. 32, 689 (2007)), which describes any Mueller matrix as a product of a depolarizer, a diattenuator and a retarder with the diattenuator placed after the depolarizer and not before, as in the well-known Lu and Chipman's forward decomposition. The raw data are Mueller images of a depolarizer (dilute milk at variable concentrations), followed by two tilted glass plates as a diattenuator and a mica retardation plate. While the reverse decomposition accurately reconstructs the component matrices in all cases, the usual forward decomposition provides reasonable values only for the trace of the depolarizer matrix, the other quantities being affected by gross errors. The potential interest of this decomposition for biological samples is briefly discussed.

General description of polarization in lidar using Stokes vectors and polar decomposition of Mueller matrices

“…Though there are many ways to perform and represent PD [22][23][24][25], we provide here an analysis of Mueller matrices in the context of forward PD [18]. Through this analysis, a Mueller matrix can be decomposed into the product of three fundamental polarization effects: diattenuation, retardance, and depolarization.…”

“…(25) and imposing the symmetry requirement between the 1; 2 and 2; 1 elements exhibited by the total volume phase matrix in Eq. (20), we find the polarizance in Eq.…”

A new imaging technique for the study of polarimetric properties using light polarization

“…For this purpose the polarization, one of the four light characterization parameters between amplitude, phase and coherence, has been chosen as the contrast element, as just proposed by Jacques [2] and Guyot [3,4] and Anastaziadou [5] to highlight imaging contrast. In fact it allows to enhance many structural details, whereas it is often impossible to distinguish with naked eye and using classical imaging method, for example some structural difference between sane and pathologic tissue as showed in Fig.1 [6].…”

Nonorthogonal polarizers: a polar analysis

“…The operator of this sandwich is, evidently, P jP θ i P jP x i jP θ ihP θ jP x ihP x j cos θjP θ ihP x j: (17) It is straightforward that the eigenvectors and the eigenvalues of this device operator are jP θ i; with λ 1 cos θhP x jP θ i cos 2 θ; jP y i; with λ 2 0: (18) Obviously, this is a nonorthogonal polarization device:…”

“…Gil and Bernabeu [13] introduced the polar decomposition theorem in handling the Mueller matrices. Since then, the polar as well as the singular value decomposition of the Jones and Mueller matrices has become a common method of analyzing the properties of various polarization devices and anisotropic media in general [8,9,[14][15][16][17][18][19].…”