Analysis of prisms' misalignment errors in dual Wollaston prisms polarization detector

This research analyzes the influence of Wollaston prisms' misalignment errors on the measurement accuracy. The misalignment errors of prisms in longitude and horizontal as well as the cross angle between two optical axes of the Wollaston prisms have been studied based on the inversion of the Stokes parameters. The result shows that, for a given accuracy of polarization measurement, the acceptable longitudinal and horizontal misalignment errors changes with the variance of wavelength and degree of polarization, while the acceptable misalignment error of cross angle between two optical axes is a fixed value. The conclusion provides a theoretical basis for the design of dual-Wollaston prisms polarization detector.