Static polarization-difference interference imaging spectrometer.

ABSTRACT

A static polarization-difference imaging spectrometer is conceptually described and demonstrated through experiment. It consists of a Wollaston prism, a Savart polariscope, a linear analyzer, and a CCD camera. This design improves the existing polarization-difference system by eliminating its moving parts and obtaining the spectral variation of the polarization state, and making the system more compact and robust. After simultaneously acquiring two sequential interference images corresponding to two orthogonal polarization states, the hyperspectral images of the states can be reconstructed, respectively. The use of uniaxial birefringent crystal can widen the detectable spectral region.