Analysis of the effect of optical thickness on polarization in a sea fog stratified environment

Abstract

Since there are usually multiple layers present in a real-world sea fog environment, and because previous studies have tended to analyze sea fog as a single layer rather than as refined layered sea fog, this paper splits sea fog into two categories: water fog and salt fog double-layer environments. By adjusting the optical thickness of the two layers of media, we may investigate the issue of the law governing the transmission of polarized light. In this paper, the analysis is mainly carried out through a simulation and experimental tests. The simulation portion is based mostly on the improved layered Monte Carlo approach, which builds a simulation model more appropriate for multilayer non-spherical media by using the accumulation principle to determine the scattering and transmission properties between layers. The tests are conducted by altering the double-layer medium’s optical thickness, incoming wavelength, and polarization state, and then getting the polarization information of visible light after transmission through the complicated environment. The findings demonstrate that the optical thickness of the sea fog double-layer media affects polarized light transmission in a non-negligible way. Longer wavelength polarized light may keep polarization information better as the optical thickness increases, and circularly polarized light has polarization-preserving properties that are superior to linearly polarized light. By contrasting the simulation findings with the experimental data, the consistency of the two conclusions is confirmed, and the study offers a helpful resource for the transmission of polarized light in the sea fog environment.