Multi-carrier channeled polarimetry for photoelastic modulator systems

Photoelastic modulator-based polarimeters use multi-carrier modulation schemes that are more complicated than the single carriers of rotating optics. Current state-of-the-art reconstruction implementations favor mathematical simplicity by using significantly abridged subsets of channels. In this Letter, we extend our generalized channeled polarimetry principles to address the challenges associated with multi-carrier modulation schemes. We demonstrate the performance forfeited by existing systems through the use of an incomplete set of information channels, as well as propose a set of more optimal system parameters that achieve better reconstruction noise characteristics. The overall improvement corresponds to a better sensitivity of up to a factor of six.