Band limited data reconstruction in modulated polarimeters

Area of Science:

• Optical Physics
• Instrumentation and Measurement

Background:

• Sequential in time polarimeters using Data Reduction Matrix techniques can produce polarization artifacts when measuring time-varying signals.
• Increasing polarimeter speed is a current approach to mitigate these artifacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and present a band-limited reconstruction algorithm for accurate measurement of temporally varying Stokes parameters.
• To demonstrate artifact reduction in polarimetric measurements of dynamic signals.

Main Methods:

• A band-limited reconstruction algorithm is described for processing data from sequential in time polarimeters.
• The algorithm is applied to an example polarimeter featuring a rotating retarder and polarizer.
• Conventional processing methods are compared against the band-limited reconstruction algorithm.

Main Results:

• The band-limited reconstruction algorithm enables measurement and processing of time-varying Stokes parameters without artifacts.
• Significant error reduction is demonstrated when using the band-limited reconstruction algorithm compared to conventional methods for the example polarimeter.

Conclusions:

• The proposed band-limited reconstruction algorithm effectively overcomes polarization artifacts in time-varying polarimeter data.
• This method offers a significant improvement in measurement accuracy for dynamic Stokes parameters.