Reflection-induced linear polarization rotation and phase modulation between orthogonal waves for refractive index variation measurement

Opt Lett. 2016 Apr 1;41(7):1692-5. doi: 10.1364/OL.41.001692.

Abstract

An optical phase interrogation is proposed to study reflection-induced linear polarization rotation in a common-path homodyne interferometer. This optical methodology can also be applied to the measurement of the refractive index variation of a liquid solution. The performance of the refractive index sensing structure is discussed theoretically, and the experimental results demonstrated a very good ability based on the proposed schemes. Compared with a conventional common-path heterodyne interferometer, the proposed homodyne interferometer with only a single channel reduced the usage of optic elements.