Analysis of signal-to-noise ratio of angle of polarization and degree of polarization

Recent advancements in nanofabrication technology has led to commercialization of single-chip polarization and color-polarization imaging sensors in the visible spectrum. Novel applications have arisen with the emergence of these sensors leading to questions about noise in the reconstructed polarization images. In this paper, we provide theoretical analysis for the input and output referred noise for the angle and degree of linear polarization information. We validated our theoretical model with experimental data collected from a division of focal plane polarization sensor. Our data indicates that the noise in the angle of polarization images depends on both incident light intensity and degree of linear polarization and is independent of the incident angle of polarization. However, noise in degree of linear polarization images depends on all three parameters: incident light intensity, angle and degree of linear polarization. This theoretical model can help guide the development of imaging setups to record optimal polarization information. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

Recent advancements in nanofabrication technology have led to the commercialization of single-chip polarization and color-polarization imaging sensors in the visible spectrum, raising questions about noise in the reconstructed polarization images. Theoretical analysis and experimental validation showed that noise in polarization angle images depends on incident light intensity and degree of linear polarization, while noise in linear polarization degree images depends on all three parameters: incident light intensity, angle, and degree of linear polarization. This theoretical model can guide the development of imaging setups for optimal polarization information recording.