Patent ID: 7254288

Claim:
A method for generating a completely depolarized light beam, comprising: (a) a corner cube; (b) a collimated linearly polarized input light beam irradiating said corner cube having i. a tilt angle σ′ rotated about a tilt-axis having an orientation angle (90°+θ) in said corner cube wherein the tilt angle σ′ is between the laser beam path and the major diagonal of said corner cube, and in combination ii. the linear polarization orientation of said input light beam is rotated by the angle ψ with respect to said corner cube orientation wherein the inter-related parameters σ′, θ, ψ have been predetermined to yield the depolarized state conditions; (c) a polarized retro-reflected light beam from said corner cube; (d) a bi-directional beam director interposed between the input light beam source and said corner cube re-directs said retro-reflected beam from said corner cube to the output port of said beam director thereby steering away said retro-reflected beam from said input light beam; and (e) a spatial averaging means for combining the polarization states of said retro-reflected beam from said corner cube via said output port of said beam director thereby generating said depolarized output beam having zero-valued Stokes polarization parameters S 1 ″=S 2 ″=S 3 ″=0.