Phys.org May 2, 2024
When light scatters off an object, its polarization, in general, changes—a transformation described by the object’s Mueller matrix. Mueller matrix imaging is an important technique in science and technology to image the spatially varying polarization response of an object of interest, to reveal rich information otherwise invisible to traditional imaging. An international team of researchers (USA – UC San Diego, Germany) conceptualized, implemented, and demonstrated a compact Mueller matrix imaging system—composed of a metasurface to produce structured polarization illumination and a metasurface for polarization analysis—that could, in a single shot, acquire all 16 components of an object’s spatially varying Mueller matrix over an image. According to the researchers their implementation, which is free of any moving parts or bulk polarization optics, should enable and empower applications in real-time medical imaging, material characterization, machine vision, target detection and other important areas… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Conventional polarization optics versus metasurfaces. Credit: Nature Photonics, 2 May 2024