Design and development of a 1:1 configuration snapshot channeled Stokes spectropolarimeter

We present the design and realization of a new configuration, to our knowledge, for a Stokes channeled spectropolarimeter where the two high-order retarders in the system share the same thickness. We show experimental measurements made using this system and compare results with the standard 1:2 thickness ratio configuration. We also explore alternative calibration approaches that use different linear polarization angles than the 22.5° that has been almost exclusively employed in previous research. Finally, we evaluate measurement accuracy for various input light sources and introduce a simple method to calculate the spectral resolution of a channeled spectropolarimeter.