Interferometric measurement of the degree of polarization and control of the contrast of intensity fluctuations

We introduce a technique for determining the polarimetric characteristics of light by measuring the contrast of the intensity fluctuations in an interferometric setup. The method permits simultaneous measurement of the degree of polarization and of the second normalized Stokes component, which is related to the ellipsometric parameters azimuth and ellipticity, based on only two measurements. We also show that by using phase modulation we can increase the signal-to-noise ratio as much as 40% under certain conditions. © 2004 Optical Society of America.