Polarimetry by classical ghost diffraction

Abstract

We present a technique for studying the polarimetric properties of a birefringent object by means of classical ghost diffraction. The standard ghost diffraction setup is modified to include polarizers for controlling the state of polarization of the beam in various places. The object is characterized by a Jones matrix and the absolute values of the Fourier transforms of its individual elements are measured. From these measurements the original complex-valued functions can be retrieved through iterative methods resulting in the full Jones matrix of the object. We present two different placements of the polarizers and show that one of them leads to better polarimetric quality, while the other placement offers the possibility to perform polarimetry without controlling the source's state of polarization. The concept of an effective source is introduced to simplify the calculations. Ghost polarimetry enables the assessment of polarization properties as a function of position within the object through simple intensity correlation measurements.