Polarization change induced by a galvanometric optical scanner

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how a two-axis galvanometric optical scanner affects the polarization state of a beam, deriving matrices that describe the transformation of both propagation direction and polarization in terms of mirror angles.

Contribution

It provides explicit matrices for polarization transformation induced by a galvanometric scanner, linking mirror angles to polarization changes on the Poincare' sphere.

Findings

Derived the propagation direction transformation matrix.

Obtained the Jones matrix for polarization change.

Linked mirror orientations to polarization rotation parameters.

Abstract

We study the optical properties of a two-axis galvanometric optical scanner constituted by a pair of rotating planar mirrors, focusing our attention on the transformation induced on the polarization state of the input beam. We obtain the matrix that defines the transformation of the propagation direction of the beam and the Jones matrix that defines the transformation of the polarization state. Both matrices are expressed in terms of the rotation angles of two mirrors. Finally, we calculate the parameters of the general rotation in the Poincare' sphere that describes the change of polarization state for each mutual orientation of the mirrors.