From the OpticStudio manual under Defining Initial Polarization: “No matter which method is selected, the transmission results for unpolarized light will be unaffected because any two orthogonal rays may be traced to compute transmission.”
Does this mean that I can use POLDEFINE 1, 0, 0, 0 followed by a POLTRACE and then POLDEFINE 0, 1, 0, 0 followed by another POLTRACE and average those results to get an average transmission at a given wavelength?
Yes. Unpolarized light transmission can be modeled by tracing any two, orthogonally polarized rays and averaging the result.
Thanks, Mark. Just needed some reassurance on that. I appreciate your rapid response, sir. -Alex
Hi John,
Yes, OpticStudio always needs to trace 2 rays when performing a polarization ray trace for unpolarized rays (you need a polarization ray trace to account for things like Fresnel reflections and bulk absorption, even if you want to analyze unpolarized light).
I like to use the CODA Merit Function Operand to investigate polarization ray trace and to compare to ZPL results for verification:
And the ZPL code is:
FORMAT 0.6
POLDEFINE 1, 0, 0, 0
POLTRACE 0, 0, 0, 1, PWAV(), 1, NSUR()
POLDEFINE 0, 1, 0, 0
POLTRACE 0, 0, 0, 1, PWAV(), 2, NSUR()
PRINT "Jx intensity : ", VEC1(1)
PRINT "Jy intensity : ", VEC2(1)
PRINT "Average : ", (VEC1(1) + VEC2(1)) / 2
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