Liquid crystal-based Mueller matrix spectral imaging polarimetry for parameterizing mineral structural organization

Abstract

Herein, we discuss the remote assessment of the subwavelength organizational structure of a medium. Specifically, we use spectral imaging polarimetry, as the vector nature of polarized light enables it to interact with optical anisotropies within a medium, while the spectral aspect of polarization is sensitive to small-scale structure. The ability to image these effects allows for inference of spatial structural organization parameters. This work describes a methodology for revealing structural organization by exploiting the Stokes/Mueller formalism and by utilizing measurements from a spectral imaging polarimeter constructed from liquid crystal variable retarders and a liquid crystal tunable filter. We provide results to validate the system and then show results from measurements on a mineral sample.

Zebrafish structural development in Mueller-matrix scanning microscopy

“…Because of the slow dynamics of current fixed samples, higher temporal resolutions are not required. In any case, the sequential measurement can be speeded up by replacing the rotation motor of the optical components from the PSG by liquid crystal variable retarders or electro-optics devices 40 , or by spectrally encode/decode the polarization states at a high-speed rate, as proposed in recent works 28,30 .…”

Full-Stokes polarization imaging based on liquid crystal variable retarders and metallic nanograting arrays

“…These two values are close to the optimum value of 0.192 for Stoke vector detection with free parameters selection [34]. In equation ( 4), |M| of 0.125 is adopted in this article due to the simple S 3 retrieve calculation in equation (5). In this condi tion, full Stokes vector can be easily retrieved.…”

“…Imaging polarimetry is a valuable technique to remotely obtain abundant structural and optical information, which has been applied in many research fields, such as atmospheric remote sensing, target detection, astronomy and biomedical diag nostics [1][2][3][4]. Because the desired polarization parameters are retrieved from a group of light intensity measurements, sev eral techniques including divisionoftime (DoT), divisionof amplitude, divisionofaperture and divisionoffocalplane (DoFP) have been developed in the past decades [5][6][7][8][9][10]. DoFP polarimeters adopt four independent micropolarizers on the top of neighboring pixels of the image sensor to assess the four components of a Stokes vector, which have significant advantages in manufacturing cost, system integration, and realtime measurement.…”

Optimization and calibration of a polarization-camera-based Mueller imaging polarimeter for biological samples examination

“…Mueller matrix polarimeters are important tools used to determine all the polarization properties of different types of samples, with applications in many research fields, and valuable information to describe biological samples [1][2][3]. Many architectures have been used to retrieve all the elements of the Mueller matrix, in particular optical systems along with CCD detectors are used to measure all its elements in an extended scene [4,5], where each pixel is related to different ray paths of the transmitted, reflected or scattered light from the sample. Recently, division of focal plane detectors are being used, integrating linear micro-polarizers arrays, where each group of pixels has linear polarizers with transmission axis oriented at 0°, 90°, 45°, and 135°.…”