Polarization property analysis of a periscopic scanner with three-dimensional polarization ray-tracing calculus

The polarization properties of a two-axis periscopic optical scanner constituted by a pair of rotating planar mirrors have been studied by using the three-dimensional polarization ray-tracing matrix method. The separate and cumulative matrices that define the transformation of the polarization state are obtained and expressed in terms of the rotation angles of two mirrors. The variations of diattenuation and retardance are investigated and graphically shown as functions of the rotation angles. On this basis, a further investigation about the cumulative polarization aberrations of three different metal-coated periscopic scanners is accomplished. Finally, the output polarization states of the three metal-coated scanners are calculated with the input beam of the arbitrary polarization states, and the results show that aluminum film is more appropriate than gold film or silver film for the polarization-maintaining periscopic scanner.