Self-calibration and high-accuracy detection technology for the probability density of polarization state of a light field

Abstract

Measurement of the probability density of polarization state need specific phase modulator.However, the existence of mechanic processing error results in the error of the polarization property of modulator. Meanwhile, the error of the measurement system’s alignment is also existing. All of this errors need to calibrate to ensure the accuracy of measurement. In this paper, We present a self-calibration method based on the theory of the probability density of polarization state which is represented in Mueller formalism. After measuring the probability density of polarization state, we can extract the Stokes parameters of a light field of unknown polarization in a single irradiance measurement, by finding the maximum of the probability density of polarization state.