Generating high-performance polarization measurements with low-performance polarizers: demonstration with a microgrid polarization camera

Microgrid polarization cameras have historically experienced lower performance than is typical for monolithic polarization systems. Specifically, their polarizer elements have had a lower extinction ratio and a larger orientation error. We show how to use the calibrated parameters of a nonideal polarizer to modify the polarization measurement model, effectively allowing one to generate high-performance measurements from low-performance elements. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach on a commercial polarization camera and estimate the signal-to-noise ratio penalty for using nonideal polarizers in this camera as being 1.25  ×   versus a system using ideal polarizers.