Design of polarimeters based on liquid crystals and biaxial crystals for polarization metrology

Abstract

This paper reviews three polarimeters based on different types of liquid crystal cells (parallel and twisted nematic, and ferroelectric), as well as a polarimeter based on the conical refraction phenomenon (occurring in biaxial crystals). A comparative analysis between them is included in order to summarize their main features and to point out their strengths and limitations. Then, the best candidate for imaging polarimetry is selected and implemented. Several polarization images are analyzed in order to show the potential of the instrument. Moreover, a new experimental configuration is presented, which combines an imaging polarimeter and a module used to achieve sub-pixelresolution in a system where the resolution is limited by detector pixel size. Experimental results show an improvement in the spatial resolution of polarization images by a factor of 1.4.