Experimental limits for eigenvalue calibration in liquid-crystal Mueller-matrix polarimeters.

A numerical study is carried out to find the experimental conditions necessary for the eigenvalue calibration procedure to work correctly in a liquid-crystal variable-retarder-based Mueller-matrix polarimeter. Using the error between the simulated experimental Mueller matrix in a polarimeter with errors and the expected ideal Mueller matrices for four calibration samples, the maximum experimental errors are estimated for a successful eigenvalue calibration. It is found that the retarder axes' orientations have smaller permitted errors than the retardation values.