Explicit Reconstruction of Polarization Ellipse using Rotating Polarizer

This paper describes a method for the explicit reconstruction and visualization of various polarization ellipses from the intensities measured after a rotating polarizer. The state of polarization of a light beam is represented by the variation of the electric field amplitude vector with polar angle in the laboratory coordinate system defined by the experimental set-up. The intensity of the light beam measured after passing through a rotating polarizer gives the estimate of the wave electric field component parallel to the polarizer pass axis averaged over a time period. The formulae for the estimation of orthogonal field component and polar angle, in the polarizer coordinate system have been derived. Both the orthogonally polarized components and the polar angle are functions of ellipse parameters that have been deduced from the intensity measurements. Finally, the resultant electric field and the polar angle are mapped to the laboratory coordinate system and compared with the representation of the polarization ellipse obtained from the Stokes vectors.