Abstract

The Poincaré sphere is a graphical representation in a three-dimensional space for the polarization of light. Similarly, an optical element with spatially varying birefringence can be represented by a surface on a four-dimensional “Poincaré hypersphere.” A projection of this surface onto the traditional Poincaré sphere provides an intuitive geometric description of the polarization transformation performed by the element, as well as the induced geometric phase. We apply this formalism to quantify the effects of birefringence on the image quality of an optical system.

© 2018 Optical Society of America

Poincaré sphere of electromagnetic spatial coherence

Jyrki Laatikainen, Ari T. Friberg, Olga Korotkova, and Tero Setälä
Opt. Lett. 46(9) 2143-2146 (2021)

Poincaré sphere representation of birefringent networks

Mark Johnson
Appl. Opt. 20(12) 2075-2080 (1981)

Poincaré sphere representation of scalar two-beam interference under spatial unitary transformations

Atri Halder, Andreas Norrman, and Ari T. Friberg
Opt. Lett. 46(22) 5619-5622 (2021)

Hybrid order Poincaré spheres for Stokes singularities

Gauri Arora, Ruchi, and P. Senthilkumaran
Opt. Lett. 45(18) 5136-5139 (2020)

Electrically driven generation of arbitrary vector vortex beams on the hybrid-order Poincaré sphere

Ruisi Wang, Shanshan He, Shizhen Chen, Jin Zhang, Weixing Shu, Hailu Luo, and Shuangchun Wen
Opt. Lett. 43(15) 3570-3573 (2018)