Measuring the Quantum Polarization State of Light
Michael G. Raymer, Andrew Funk, D. F. McAlister · Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks · 2005
Quantum-state tomography is proposed as a means to achieve a complete measurement of the quantum polarization state of a light wave. A set of measurements using dual-polarization balanced homodyne detection is shown to be tomographi-cally complete with respect to the statistics of the SU(2) Stokes operators on the Poincaré sphere. Complete reconstruction of the polarization sector of the density matrix of a partially polarized optical field can be achieved while randomizing the overall phase of the dual-polarization local oscillator.