Measurement of the Stokes parameters of light
- 1 December 1977
- journal article
- Published by Optica Publishing Group in Applied Optics
- Vol. 16 (12) , 3200-3205
- https://doi.org/10.1364/ao.16.003200
Abstract
We describe a measuring system for determining the state of polarization of a beam of light in terms of its Stokes parameters. The technique which can be fully automated incorporates a monochromator and single photon counting detection and can thus be applied over a large wavelength range for very weak optical signals. Fourier transformation of the data by an on-line minicomputer allows immediate calculation of the Stokes parameters. We discuss special applications to light emitted from excited atomic systems with and without cylindrical symmetry.Keywords
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