Patent ID: 7796257

Claim:
A measuring apparatus that calculates at least one matrix element among sixteen matrix elements of a Mueller matrix that indicates optical characteristics of a measurement target, the measuring apparatus comprising: a light intensity information acquisition section that acquires light intensity information relating to a measurement light containing a given band component, the measurement light having been modulated by at least four optical elements included in an optical system and the measurement target; and a calculation section that calculates the at least one matrix element based on the light intensity information relating to the measurement light and a theoretical expression for the light intensity of the measurement light, the at least four optical elements including a first polarizer, a second polarizer, a first carrier retarder, and a second carrier retarder, the first and second carrier retarders having retardations that are known and differ from each other; the measurement light being obtained by causing a light emitted from a light source to be incident on the measurement target through the first polarizer and the first carrier retarder and causing the light modulated by the measurement target to be incident on a light-receiving section through the second carrier retarder and the second polarizer; the light intensity information acquisition section acquiring the light intensity information relating to a plurality of the measurement lights obtained from the optical system by changing setting of a principal axis direction of at least one of the at least four optical elements; and the calculation section performing: a carrier amplitude coefficient calculation process that calculates at least one carrier amplitude coefficient included in the theoretical expression for the light intensity of each of the measurement lights based on a correlation function obtained by analyzing the light intensity information relating to each of the measurement lights; and a matrix element calculation process that calculates the at least one matrix element based on the carrier amplitude coefficient calculated by the carrier amplitude coefficient calculation process and the theoretical expression for the carrier amplitude coefficient including the principal axis directions of the at least four optical elements and the at least one matrix element.