Spectral calibration method for Stokes polarimeter

An efficient method that allows spectral calibration for a Stokes polarimeter is presented in this paper. The calibration procedure only uses a reference polarizer to generate an arbitrary linear polarization state. The reference polarizer could also be calibrated while calibrating the Stokes polarimeter. In addition, this method does not involve the small-angle approximation and could avoid the influence of the initial azimuth error of the retarder and the reference polarizer. The experiment was carried out by a spectroscopy and a polarization state analyzer with a rotating wave plate. Experimental results show that the alignments of axis as well as the true retardation at a specific wavelength of the retarder are obtained.