A full Stokes imaging polarimeter based on a consumer CMOS camera

Abstract

Nowadays, taking advantage of polarization allows enhancing the contrast of a detected object and extending the information of the scene compared to conventional intensity imagery, as the information added by polarimetric images is complementary to intensity ones. Using polarization has a wide interest in space exploration, earth remote sensing, Machine vision and biomedical diagnosis, and is extending its use to several applications. Here, we present a basic imaging polarimeter which measures the full Stokes vector of the scene based on a division of time structure, based on a consumer CMOS camera. The polarization state of partially or fully polarized light can be represented by means of the Stokes vector, which is the goal of the measurement. However, due to its nature, the components of the Stokes vector cannot be measured directly, as they must be recovered from a set of intensity measurements. In the paper the results show the measured intensity at 632nm and the recovered Stokes data produced by the determined data reduction matrix at six reference polarization states, as well as the theoretical and recovered Stokes parameters from the calibration experiment. The root mean square (RMS) errors are below 10% . Therefore, this system can provide a well-conditioned data reduction matrix for noise immunity and the spectral range can be widened by using white light and a monochrome camera.