Abstract

A measure of polarization changing speed of the light depolarized by a simple depolarizer is proposed. The polarization changing speed can be quantified by using the variance of the average of polarization state. In addition, the measure is theoretically formulated as a function of the linewidth of a light source. For this goal, the polarization state parameter is defined, and its autocorrelation is derived mathematically. Because the proposed measure is based on the statistics of averaged polarization, it also gives us the statistical information of the average of the physical quantity directly related to the polarization. For verification of the physical importance, an experiment is performed. The experimental result shows good agreement with theory. The proposed measure is proven to be suitable for quantifying randomly varying polarization changing speed.

© 2007 IEEE

Polarization changes at Lyot depolarizer output for different types of input beams

J. Carlos G. de Sande, Gemma Piquero, and Cristina Teijeiro
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 29(3) 278-284 (2012)

Depolarization index and the average degree of polarization

Russell A. Chipman
Appl. Opt. 44(13) 2490-2495 (2005)

Modulation of electromagnetic fields by a depolarizer of random polarizer array

Ning Ma, Steen G. Hanson, and Wei Wang
Opt. Lett. 41(9) 1997-2000 (2016)

Simple quantum model for light depolarization

Andrei B. Klimov, José L. Romero, and Luis L. Sánchez-Soto
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 23(1) 126-133 (2006)

Polarization-independent electro-optic depolarizer

F. Heismann and K. L. Tokuda
Opt. Lett. 20(9) 1008-1010 (1995)