Optical Measurements: Polarization and Coherence of Light Fields

The Chapter is devoted to consideration of metrological aspects of intrinsically interconnected characteristics of light fields, such as intensity, polarization and coherence. Conceptually, all these quantities are derived from the Wolf’s coherency matrix [1]. However, new insight on interconnection of them is provided by the novel singular-optical approach [2, 3] predicting existence of important regularities in electromagnetic fields which were early considered as quite random ones. So, phase singularities of scalar (homogeneously polarized), polarization singularities of vector (inhomogeneously polarized) fields, as well as singularities of correlation functions of partially coherent, partially polarized fields constitute specific skeletons, i.e. “bearing” elements of a field. Knowing the loci and characteristics of such elements, one can judge on behavior of a field at its other areas, at least in qualitative manner, but quite reliably [4]. This circumstance opens quite new possibilities for metrology of optical fields and leads to prospective practical applications of new metrological techniques.