Implementation of a high-speed imaging polarimeter using a liquid crystal ferroelectric modulator

Imaging polarimetry through evaluation of the degree of polarization of light can give much information about complex scenes. A classic optical set-up usually consists in using a rotating polarizer or a tunable phase modulator as a polarization state analyzer. In this study, we implement an imaging polarimeter using a ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulator as a polarization state analyzer able to run at 1000 Hz. This way, our polarimeter can overcome the classic limit of 50 Hz, provided that the camera is fast enough. Our polarimeter is compared with classical systems which use rotating polarizers.