Depolarization Characteristics of Different Reflective Interfaces Indicated by Indices of Polarimetric Purity (IPPs)

Abstract

Compared with the standard depolarization index, indices of polarimetric purity (IPPs) have better performances to describe depolarization characteristics of targets with different roughnesses of interfaces under different incident angles, which allow us a further analysis of the depolarizing properties of samples. Here, we use IPPs obtained from different reflective interfaces as a criterion of depolarization property to characterize and classify targets covered by organic paint layers with different roughness. We select point-light source as radiation source with wavelength as 632.8 nm, and four samples, including Cu, Au, Al and Al2O3, covered by an organic paint layer with refractive index of n = 1.46 and Gaussian roughness of α = 0.05~0.25. Under different incident angles, the values of P1, P2, P3 at divided 90 × 360 grid points and their mean values in upper hemisphere have been obtained and discussed in the IPPs space. The results show that the depolarization performances of the different reflective interfaces (materials, incident angles and surface roughness) are unique in IPPs space, providing us with a new avenue to analyze and characterize different targets.