Direct Spatially Resolved Snapshot Interferometric Phase and Stokes Vector Extraction by Using an Imaging PolarCam

We extract the 3D phase \varDelta and the Stokes parameter S_3 of a transmissive anisotropic object spatially using an interferometric PolarCam. Four parallel interferograms with a phase shift of \pi/2 between the images are captured in a single snapshot and then reconstructed by the four-bucket algorithm to extract the 3D phase of the object. The S_3 is then calculated directly from the obtained 3D phase \varDelta. The extracted results of \varDelta and S_3 were compared with those extracted from the non-interferometric PolarCam and the Thorlabs polarimeter, and the results match quite well. The merit of using the interferometric PolarCam is that no mechanical movement mechanisms are included, and hence the \varDelta and S_3 of the object can be extracted, with high accuracy and within a part of a second (three times faster than non-interferometric PolarCam and Thorlabs polarimeter methods). Moreover, this method can be applied in the field of the dynamic spectro–interferometric PolarCam and can be implemented using swept-wavelength approaches.