Optimal design for a broadband Stokes polarimeter of liquid crystal variable retarders

Abstract

Liquid crystal variable retarders (LCVRs) are the core component for rapid and high-precision broadband polarization detection. Additionally, the ability to suppress noise greatly affects the results of polarization measurements. In this work, a solving optimal design approach is proposed for building a high-performance broadband Stokes polarimeter based on LCVRs, which greatly reduces the influences of data fluctuation from liquid crystals and dispersion on the experimental results. This method relies on evaluation criteria of the condition number (CN) to build a gradual optimization that includes the following three steps: fixing the fast axis angles, meeting the requirements of a wideband, and ensuring a minimum CN. Additionally, with the method of increasing the measurement analysis vector, we ensure the whole band in the low CN and offer a solution to the problem of the difficulty in optimizing the LCVRs caused by the large change of retardance at 490–700 nm. Finally, the rapid and high-precision Stokes measurement of 490–700 nm wavelengths is achieved. We test the performance of the polarimeter after optimization in our simulation and experiment, which shows that the total RMS error is less than 0.032 and the single point error is small. This work not only reduces the influence of LCVR error on the experimental results but also makes it possible to apply LCVRs to 490–700 nm detection.