Abstract:

The polarization characteristics of light scattered by several materials such as paint, metal, dielectric layers is significant. The stokes-Mueller formalism is used to study the depolarizing properties of sample. The Mueller matrix measurement is introduced. The polarized light from a He-Ne laser（入=632.8 nm ）is used, which is generated by a polarization generator, and focuses onto the surface of the aluminium sample, then passes through the polarization-analysis optics onto a CCD camera, at last the Mueller matrix element image data is obtained. The retardation plates are submitted to a calibration procedure, 64 images are digitized and a generalized linear least square fit is calculated. The horizontal or vertical polarization, linear 45- or 135-polarization, and right or left circular polarization are compared and analyzed. The results show that for alumiunum plate, circular states have greater depolarization than linear states.

Key words: polarization optics, Mueller matrix, aluminium