Pixelated-polarization-camera-based polarimetry system for wide real-time optical rotation measurement

Abstract Chirality is an essential consideration in the field of life sciences and pharmaceutical industry because most biomolecules and pharmaceuticals are chiral, and optical rotation measurement is a simple and efficient means for identification, purity test and content detection of chiral materials. However, there are some drawbacks in existing methods, such as small measurement range, non-real-time performance, low measurement accuracy and resolution. This paper presents a novel system to implement optical rotation measurement, and pixelated polarization cameras and Stokes parameters are employed in the system. The polarization information of linearly polarized incident light can be recorded and extracted by a pixelated polarization camera and Stokes parameters respectively. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed system has the necessary advantages for optical rotation measurement, such as real time, wide range ( − 90 ° to + 90 °), high accuracy ( 1 × 1 0 − 4 °) and high resolution ( ± 6 × 1 0 − 6 °). Thus, this measurement system has great practical prospects in the hospital clinical diagnosis, chemical research, sugar production and pharmaceutical industry.