Measurement of the Stokes parameters

The electric field (in Jones vector form) of the incident light (before the quarter-wave plate) is 

At the polarizer, the electric field along the transmission axis is 

In the first step of the measurement, the quarter-wave plate is removed, which is equivalent to P = Q. The light intensity is measured when the polarizer is at the following positions  

When the quarter-wave plate is inserted and the polarizer is at 45°, the measured light intensity will be 

From these four equations, the Stokes parameters can be calculated. 

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Figure 19. The experimental setup for measurement of the Stokes parameters.

Figure 11.4 Measurement of the Stokes parameters with a retarder and an ideal perfect linear polarizer rotated with respect to the laboratory reference frame.

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