Polarimeters for the Detection of Anisotropy from Reflectance.

Polarimetry is used to determine the Stokes parameters of a laser beam. Once all four S0,1,2,3 parameters are determined, the state of polarisation is established. Upon reflection of a laser beam with the defined polarisation state, the directly measured parameters can be used to determine the optical properties of the surface, which modify the -state upon reflection. Here, we use polarimetry for the determination of surface anisotropies related to the birefringence and dichroism of different materials, which have a common feature of linear patterns with different alignments and scales. It is shown that polarimetry in the back-reflected light is complementary to ellipsometry and four-polarisation camera imaging; experiments were carried out using a microscope.