A stokes polarimetric light microscopy view of liquid crystal droplets

Abstract The optical characteristics of materials, such as their magnetooptical effects, birefringence, optical activities, linear and circular dichroism, are probed via the polarisation states of light transmitted through or reflected from the specimens. As such, the measurements of the polarisatio...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: J. Gou, T. H. Shen, P. Bao, J. L. Ramos Angulo, S. D. Evans
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:
R
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/6c8b30714ee544f5b595c13f4fce48be
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Abstract The optical characteristics of materials, such as their magnetooptical effects, birefringence, optical activities, linear and circular dichroism, are probed via the polarisation states of light transmitted through or reflected from the specimens. As such, the measurements of the polarisation states play an important role in many research disciplines. Experimentally, Stokes parameters provide a full description of the polarisation states of light. We report the implementation of a dual- photoelastic modulator based polarimeter in a light microscope, enabling the determination of Stokes parameters at each pixel. As a case study, polarimetric images of liquid crystal droplets of different internal structures are obtained, showing their distinct polarisation characteristics. We demonstrate that the prototype Stokes polarimetric microscope allows the quantitative determination of the polarisation characteristics of light at the object plane and enables the access of the information of full polarisation states as compared to a conventional cross polariser microscope. This work shows that Stokes polarimetric microscopy may find potential applications in a wide range of research fields.