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A Stokes polarimetric light microscopy view of liquid crystal droplets

Gou, J; Shen, T; Bao, P; Ramos Angulo, JL; Evans, SD

Authors

J Gou

P Bao

JL Ramos Angulo

SD Evans



Abstract

The optical characteristics of materials, such as their magnetooptical effects, birefringence, optical activities, linear and circular dichroism, are probed via the polarisation states of light transmitted through or reflected from the specimens. As such, the measurements of the polarisation states play an important role in many research disciplines. Experimentally, Stokes parameters provide a full description of the polarisation states of light. We report the implementation of a dual- photoelastic modulator based polarimeter in a light microscope, enabling the determination of Stokes parameters at each pixel. As a case study, polarimetric images of liquid crystal droplets of different internal structures are obtained, showing their distinct polarisation characteristics. We demonstrate that the prototype Stokes polarimetric microscope allows the quantitative determination of the polarisation characteristics of light at the object plane and enables the access of the information of full polarisation states as compared to a conventional cross polariser microscope. This work shows that Stokes polarimetric microscopy may find potential applications in a wide range of research fields.

Citation

Gou, J., Shen, T., Bao, P., Ramos Angulo, J., & Evans, S. (2021). A Stokes polarimetric light microscopy view of liquid crystal droplets. Scientific reports, 11(1), 16329. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95674-4

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 26, 2021
Publication Date Aug 11, 2021
Deposit Date Jul 26, 2021
Publicly Available Date Aug 12, 2021
Journal Scientific Reports
Print ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher Nature Publishing Group
Volume 11
Issue 1
Pages 16329
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95674-4
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95674-4
Related Public URLs http://www.nature.com/srep/index.html

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