Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Stockmans, Thijs, Scheinowitz, Naor, van der Linden, Erwoud, Malysheva, Irina, Strelow, Kira, Smit, Martijn, Snik, Frans
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.07864
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911875702194176
author Stockmans, Thijs
Scheinowitz, Naor
van der Linden, Erwoud
Malysheva, Irina
Strelow, Kira
Smit, Martijn
Snik, Frans
author_facet Stockmans, Thijs
Scheinowitz, Naor
van der Linden, Erwoud
Malysheva, Irina
Strelow, Kira
Smit, Martijn
Snik, Frans
contents Polarization imaging can yield crucial information in multiple applications of remote sensing, such as characterization of clouds, aerosols, and the Aurora Borealis. Some applications require sub-percent polarimetric sensitivity and accuracy in determining the Stokes parameters, which can be a challenge to attain. In 2018, Sony released a low-cost CMOS-based imaging chip with integrated micro-polarizer array for general polarization measurements. We implement the calibration steps required for these Sony chips to reach sub-percent polarimetric accuracies. To analyze their performances, we have compared the characteristics of four different detector packages by three manufacturers housing either the monochromatic version or the RGB color variant. We present a comprehensive overview of the effects that these characteristics have on the polarimetric performance of the camera. They include dark noise, behavior over different gain settings, detector/pixel artifacts, and polarimetric effects determined by polarizer extinction ratios, polarizer orientations, and accuracy of polarimetric zero points due to differential pixel gains. In addition to calibrations using unpolarized light and fully linearly polarized light, we assess the polarimetric sensitivity within a tilting and rotating glass-plate set-up. We discuss the benefits of adding a rotating half-wave plate as an additional temporal modulator to generically mitigate some of the detector effects, and achieve better polarimetric sensitivity/accuracy albeit at the expense of lower temporal resolution. We conclude by presenting and discussing the polarimetric limits to which we were able to calibrate the detector effects for practical purposes. By reaching a compound absolute polarimetric uncertainty of less than a percent, these very compact, low-cost detectors are enabled for a multitude of scientific goals.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_07864
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sub-percent Characterization and Polarimetric Performance Analysis of Commercial Micro-polarizer Array Detectors
Stockmans, Thijs
Scheinowitz, Naor
van der Linden, Erwoud
Malysheva, Irina
Strelow, Kira
Smit, Martijn
Snik, Frans
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Optics
Polarization imaging can yield crucial information in multiple applications of remote sensing, such as characterization of clouds, aerosols, and the Aurora Borealis. Some applications require sub-percent polarimetric sensitivity and accuracy in determining the Stokes parameters, which can be a challenge to attain. In 2018, Sony released a low-cost CMOS-based imaging chip with integrated micro-polarizer array for general polarization measurements. We implement the calibration steps required for these Sony chips to reach sub-percent polarimetric accuracies. To analyze their performances, we have compared the characteristics of four different detector packages by three manufacturers housing either the monochromatic version or the RGB color variant. We present a comprehensive overview of the effects that these characteristics have on the polarimetric performance of the camera. They include dark noise, behavior over different gain settings, detector/pixel artifacts, and polarimetric effects determined by polarizer extinction ratios, polarizer orientations, and accuracy of polarimetric zero points due to differential pixel gains. In addition to calibrations using unpolarized light and fully linearly polarized light, we assess the polarimetric sensitivity within a tilting and rotating glass-plate set-up. We discuss the benefits of adding a rotating half-wave plate as an additional temporal modulator to generically mitigate some of the detector effects, and achieve better polarimetric sensitivity/accuracy albeit at the expense of lower temporal resolution. We conclude by presenting and discussing the polarimetric limits to which we were able to calibrate the detector effects for practical purposes. By reaching a compound absolute polarimetric uncertainty of less than a percent, these very compact, low-cost detectors are enabled for a multitude of scientific goals.
title Sub-percent Characterization and Polarimetric Performance Analysis of Commercial Micro-polarizer Array Detectors
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.07864