Analysis of experimental errors in Mueller matrix channeled polarimeters.

This work analyzes the effect of experimental errors and measurement noise on Mueller matrix channeled spectropolarimeters. The main advantage of this type of polarimeter is the independence on temporal resolution, as it can be used as a snapshot polarimeter. The simulation of the polarimeters with experimental errors and two published extraction methods of the sample Mueller matrix are also presented. The Mueller matrix channeled spectropolarimeter (MMCS) setup consists of a mirrored Stokes channeled spectropolarimeter (SCS) as the polarization states generator (PSG) and a SCS as the polarization states analyzer (PSA). The SCS setup comprises two thick birefringent retarders followed by a horizontal linear polarizer. The effects of the thickness ratio of the retarders, the global retardance factor, retardance errors, axes alignment errors, and additive Gaussian noise are further studied to optimize the MMCS setups. In this work, we do not include a calibration procedure to improve the measured Mueller matrix parameters, but we study the sensitivity of the polarimeter to different configurations and error sources.