Ultraviolet polarimeter for characterization of an imaging spectrometer

A polarimeter for characterization of the instrumental polarization of an imaging UV spectrometer has been designed. In the course of calibrating the polarimeter, the quarter-wave retarders were observed to possess polarization properties other than pure linear retardance. This forced the development of a complex procedure for the calibration of the retarders and a new generalized approach to polarimetric analysis.