Polarization-conversion microscopy for imaging the vectorial polarization distribution in focused light

Abstract

Polarization is a significant factor in a great variety of optical phenomena, playing an important role in determining the focusing properties of lenses, in the resolution of optical systems, and in the performance during laser processing. Knowing the polarization distribution in focused light is critical to understanding and designing relevant optical devices and systems. However, it remains challenging to characterize the vectorial polarization distribution in optical fields. We develop a polarization-conversion-based optical microscope for directly acquiring the distribution of three orthogonal polarizations in focused light and theoretically prove and experimentally demonstrate its validity by characterizing super-resolution focused light with different incident polarizations.