Full Poincar\'e polarimetry enabled through physical inference

TL;DR

This paper introduces a universal full Poincaré generator that enables single-shot, high-precision polarimetry by mapping all polarization states into a structured light field, significantly improving sensitivity and accuracy.

Contribution

The authors propose a novel measurement paradigm using a universal Poincaré generator, allowing all polarization components to be analyzed simultaneously with minimal error.

Findings

Achieved mean errors of less than 1% for each vector component.

Enhanced sensitivity by approximately three times compared to traditional methods.

Enabled detection of weak polarization aberrations previously unmeasurable.

Abstract

While polarisation sensing is vital in many areas of research, with applications spanning from microscopy to aerospace, traditional approaches are limited by method-related error amplification or accumulation, placing fundamental limitations on precision and accuracy in single-shot polarimetry. Here, we put forward a new measurement paradigm to circumvent this, introducing the notion of a universal full Poincar\'e generator to map all polarisation analyser states into a single vectorially structured light field, allowing all vector components to be analysed in a single-shot with theoretically user-defined precision. To demonstrate the advantage of our approach, we use a common GRIN optic as our mapping device and show mean errors of <1% for each vector component, enhancing the sensitivity by around three times, allowing us to sense weak polarisation aberrations not measurable by traditional single-shot techniques. Our work paves the way for next-generation polarimetry, impacting a wide variety of applications relying on weak vector measurement.