Hinds Intruments  is selling the new 150XT Mueller Polarimeter. This instrument was developed in collaboration with New York University using the 4 Photoelastic Modulator (PEM) technology we pioneered. To my knowledge this is the first commercial full Mueller matrix polarimeter with research-grade specifications ever made available . The key element here is the sensitivity.  The instrument was developed to solve complex optical activity measurements involving chiral molecules molecules and crystals that show the tiniest bias to circular polarization. The result is a highly versatile instrument, capable of studying the transmitted complicate optical response of virtually any sample, even highly depolarizing one. The tiniest strain in a glass,  the optical rotation of a birefringent crystal, the circular dichroism of a oriented molecular aggregate,  the heterogeneous response of a  petrological sample, and many other can be studied with this polarimeter.

You can have more information about this instrument checking their brochure:

http://www.hindsinstruments.com/wp-content/uploads/150XT-Mueller-Polarimeter.pdf

After more than two years in New York University this month I have started to work again in Universitat de Barcelona.  This was possible because some time ago I got a Beatriu de Pinos Fellowship. These are grants to encourage the recruitment of research personnel in the Catalan public sector, be they in universities, research centers or hospital foundations, who have had postdoctoral stays abroad.

Lately I have been quite busy with the move but now I am already resettled. I pretend to keep working in the same reseach areas as before so expect here more stuff about Mueller Matrix polarimetry and others.

Recently I have been working on how Mueller matrices handle reciprocal and nonreciprocal optical effects. Mueller matrices are truly informativative about reciprocity, but one needs to know how the information is “stored”.  A series of two papers are going to be published in Optics Letters about the topic.  For the moment they can be accessed in early view.

Mueller matrix description of homogeneous depolarizing media. I. Number of independent parameters

Mueller matrix description of homogeneous depolarizing media. II. Differential decomposition

First message of 2013!  Happy New Year to any eventual visitor. Some quick updates to start the year:

• I have updated the Publications section using an embedded PDF file. I hope this way it is easier to keep it updated!
• I have recently known that my Phd Thesis [available here] has won the 2nd prize of the  16th Award of the Council of Doctors of the University of Barcelona.
• Hinds Instruments has anounced a first commercial version of the 4-PEM Mueller matrix polarimeter we have developed [see the original publication here]. They have named it the 150XT Mueller Polarimeter

Last year I spent a lot of my time to build the instrument reported in this paper. It is one of  the bests polarimeters/ellipsometers to date, because it measures simultaneously the 16 elements of a Mueller matrix without any moving part.

• Oriol Arteaga, John Freudenthal, Baoliang Wang, and Bart Kahr, “Mueller matrix polarimetry with four photoelastic modulators: theory and calibration,” Appl. Opt. 51, 6805-6817 (2012)

You can get it here.

More exciting instrumental things should be coming soon!

A new paper has been published.

• A. Sorrenti, Z. El-Hachemi, O. Arteaga, A. Canillas, J. Crusats, J. M. Ribó.  Kinetic control of the supramolecular chirality of Porphyrin J-Aggregates, Chem. Eur. J (2012)

You can view this paper here.

I have published a biographic note about Paul Soleillet. Check the tabs at the top of this page. The paper we have recently published about Mueller matrices in fluorescence scattering (see the previous post) contains a short reappraisal of Soleillet’s work. As there seems to virtually nothing available in internet about his biography, I find it necessary to share here what I have learnt about him.

You can view this paper here.

Two papers have been recently published

• O. Arteaga, J. Freudenthal,  & B. Kahr Reckoning electromagnetic principles with polarimetric measurements of anisotropic optically active crystals.  (2012). J. Appl. Cryst. 45, 279-291.

http://journals.iucr.org/j/issues/2012/02/00/aj5192/index.html

• S. Portal-Marco, M.A. Vallvé, O. Arteaga, J. Ignés-Mullol, C. Corbella, E. Bertran, Structure and physical properties of colloidal crystals made of silica particles,  ( 2012) Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects  0927-7757,

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927775712001501?v=s5