Experimental Mueller matrix polarimetry with full Poincaré beams and a CCD camera

Abstract

Recently, the use of full Poincaré beams for extracting the Mueller matrix of a sample has been proposed. These beams present all possible polarization states across their transverse section. By placing a CCD camera behind a simple polarization analyzer formed by a quarter wave phase plate and a linear polarizer, a polarization map of the beam cross section can be obtained. This polarization map is modified when a sample is inserted before the polarization state analyzer. Comparison of these two polarization maps allows to obtain the Mueller matrix of the sample. An overdetermined system of linear equations (thousands of equations) can be written from this comparison. Standard mathematical methods are used to find optimum solution of this overdetermined system of equations. Some experimental results will be presented to check the performance of the proposed polarimetric method.