Utilizing a Cornu depolarizer in the generation of spatially unpolarized light.

In this paper, we investigate depolarization properties of a quartz double-wedge Cornu depolarizer with respect to the generation of spatially unpolarized light in terms of on-average randomly occupied states on the Poincaré sphere. Spatially resolved Stokes parameter measurements yield transformed polarization states and polarization-dispersed characteristic fringes for the Stokes parameters. Their spatial symmetry, the degree of polarization, and spatially integrated Stokes parameters as a function of the aperture-determined input diameter together with a Mueller matrix calculus model confirm the successful generation of equator states incorporating the ensemble of all purely linearly polarized states, thus on spatial average representing unpolarized light.

Ultra-fast Stokes parameter correlations of true unpolarized thermal light: type-I unpolarized light.

We measure Stokes parameter correlations in analogy to the intensity correlation measurements in the original Hanbury-Brown & Twiss configuration by realizing an experimental setup by combining a Schaefer-Collett or Berry-Gabrielse-Livingston polarimeter with a Hanbury-Brown & Twiss intensity interferometer. We investigate true unpolarized light emitted from a broadband thermal light source, which we realize by an erbium-doped fiber amplifier, thus being an ideal source of true unpolarized light. We find that all Stokes parameter correlations ⟨⟩, ∈{1,2,3} are equal to 0.