We present a method for including an arbitrary birefringence dispersion curve in some known models describing polarization state of a collimated uniform beam after passing a birefringent non-image-forming system. By the use of a modified definition of the complex degree of coherence it is shown that the presence of birefringence dispersion is analytically equivalent to a transformation of the spectrum profile of the beam passing through a non-dispersive system. This remark is then utilized for error reduction in numerical calculations of depolarization in a system with a frequency dependent differential group delay when the power spectrum density is given in discretized form. The same numerical technique applies both for implementations of coherence-based solutions and for the Mueller-Stokes formalism with polychromatic illumination, without imposing any restrictions on the power spectrum shape or width.

Date Published: 18 December 2012
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8697, 18th Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics, 869703 (18 December 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.2007213

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8697:
18th Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics
Jan Peřina Jr.; Libor Nozka; Miroslav Hrabovský; Dagmar Senderáková; Waclaw Urbańczyk; Ondrej Haderka; Libor Nožka, Editor(s)