Maximizing Young fringe visibility with a universal SU2 polarization gadget.

When a Young interferometer is fed by a general electromagnetic field, the fringe visibility may change upon insertion of an anisotropic optical element over one of the interferometer pinholes. The maximum visibility that the fringes may exhibit in this way is theoretically known, but no direct experimental check seems to be available. Here we discuss the scheme of an experimental test. In particular, maximum fringe visibility is obtained with a three-component universal SU2 polarization gadget for arbitrary coherence features of the illuminating field. Confirming results obtained with a suitable experimental setup are presented.