Polarimetric imaging beyond the speckle grain scale

Lucien Pouget (1) , Julien Fade (1) , Cyril Hamel (1) , Mehdi Alouini (1)

1 IPR - Institut de Physique de Rennes

We address an experimental Stokes imaging setup allowing one to explore the polarimetric properties of a speckle light field with spatial resolution well beyond the speckle grain scale. We detail how the various experimental difficulties inherent to such measurements can be overcome with a dedicated measurement protocol involving a careful \emph{speckle registration} step. The setup and protocol are then validated on a metallic reference sample, and used to measure the state of polarization of light in each pixel of highly resolved speckle patterns ($>$2000 pixels per speckle grain) resulting from the scattering of an incident coherent beam on samples exhibiting different polarimetric properties. Evolution of the state of polarization with spatial averaging and across adjacent speckle grains is eventually addressed.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]; Optique / photonique; Physique [physics]; Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Lucien Pouget, Julien Fade, Cyril Hamel, Mehdi Alouini. Polarimetric imaging beyond the speckle grain scale. Applied optics, 2012, 51 (30), pp.7345-7356. ⟨10.1364/AO.51.007345⟩. ⟨hal-00761108⟩