Patent ID: 8405830

Claim:
A spectroscopic polarimetric system for analyzing a sample ( 8 ), the system comprising: an excitation portion comprising: a light source ( 7 ) suitable for emitting an incident light beam ( 17 ) over a wavelength range; and a polarization state generator (PSG) ( 5 ) comprising: a linear polarizer ( 10 ) and means for modulating the polarization of the light beam; an analyzer portion comprising: a polarization state analyzer (PSA) ( 6 ) comprising: means for modulating the polarization of the light beam and a linear polarizer ( 10 ′); and detector means ( 9 ) for detecting the light beam as a function of wavelength and including a processor unit; the system being characterized in that: the means for modulating the polarization of the PSG ( 5 ) comprise three liquid crystal devices ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) and voltage control means applied to each of the liquid crystal devices ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) suitable for modulating the orientation and/or the delay of the polarization states so as to generate a sequence of m polarization states with m>4 at each measurement wavelength; the means for modulating the polarization of the PSA ( 6 ) comprise three liquid crystal devices ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) and voltage control means applied to each of the liquid crystal devices ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) suitable for modulating the orientation and/or the delay of the polarization states so as to determine a sequence of n polarization states with n>4 at each measurement wavelength; and the detector means are suitable for acquiring a sequence of N light intensity measurements where: 16 <N≦n×m at each wavelength to extract the Mueller matrix of the sample ( 8 ) therefrom.