Longitudinal polarization periodicity of unpolarized light passing through a double wedge depolarizer

Abstract

Abstract:The polarization characteristics of unpolarized light passing through a double wedge depolarizer are studied. It is found that the degree of polarization of the radiation propagating after the depolarizer is uniform across transverse planes after the depolarizer, but it changes from one plane to another in a periodic way giving, at different distances, unpolarized, partially polarized, or even perfectly polarized light. An experiment is performed to confirm this result. Measured values of the Stokes parameters and of the degree of polarization are in complete agreement with the theoretical predictions.

Partially polarized pseudo-Schell model sources

“…[24][25][26][27][28] We propose a class of partially coherent field for which the polarization properties remains invariant upon free-space propagation. On the other hand, the intensity profile and the electromagnetic degree of coherence of these sources vary with propagation.…”

Mueller Matrix Polarimetry by Means of Azimuthally Polarized Beams and Adapted Commercial Polarimeter

“…This kind of beams can be used for Mueller matrix polarimetry with a reduced number of measurements (Tripathi and Toussaint, 2009;Kenny et al, 2011). However, a problem that arise when using a general nonuniformly polarized beam is that the polarization distribution across the section of the incident light changes after propagation and, in many cases, it is not easy to study how it evolves (Martínez-Herrero and Mejías, 2010;Santarsiero et al, 2013;de Sande et al, 2012). In this work we propose two improvements: the first one is to use an azimuthally polarized beam (APB) (Gori, 2001;Zhan, 2009;Ramírez-Sánchez et al, 2009) to simultaneously generate all possible linearly polarized states at once; the second one is to measure the output polarization state at only three points of the transverse cross section of the output beam.…”

Partially Coherent Linearly Polarized Sources with Inhomogeneous Azimuth

“…Works can be found in the literature that deal with partially coherent and partially or totally polarized sources, from both theoretical and experimental points of view (Friberg and Sudol, 1982;Friberg and Turunen, 1988;Serna et al, 1992;Santarsiero et al, 1999;Piquero et al, 2002;Santarsiero et al, 2009;Ramírez-Sánchez et al, 2010;de Sande et al, 2012;Maluenda et al, 2013). The goal for proposing different kind of light sources generally is to get a better performance of different optical devices and techniques where specific characteristics of the used light are required depending on the application.…”