Related papers: Design of the Life Signature Detection Polarimeter…
Are we alone? In our quest to find life beyond Earth, we use our own planet to develop and verify new methods and techniques to remotely detect life. Our Life Signature Detection polarimeter (LSDpol), a snapshot full-Stokes…
We present the design of a point-and-shoot non-imaging full-Stokes spectropolarimeter dedicated to detecting life on Earth from an orbiting platform like the ISS. We specifically aim to map circular polarization in the spectral features of…
Context. Homochirality is a generic and unique property of life on Earth and is considered a universal and agnostic biosignature. Homochirality induces fractional circular polarization in the incident light that it reflects. Because this…
We present SQUIDPOL, a low-cost, multi-channel optical imaging polarimeter that performs simultaneous linear polarization measurements using a rotating half-wave plate, a non-polarizing beam splitter, and four wire-grid filters. We show…
Homochirality is a generic and unique property of all biochemical life and the fractional circular polarization of light it induces therefore constitutes a potentially unambiguous biosignature.} However, while high-quality circular…
Biological molecules are characterized by an intrinsic asymmetry known as homochirality. The result is optical activity of biological materials and circular polarization in the light scattered by microorganisms, cells of living organisms,…
Does life exist outside our Solar System? A first step towards searching for life outside our Solar System is detecting life on Earth by using remote sensing applications. One powerful and unambiguous biosignature is the circular…
Homochirality is a generic and unique property of all biochemical life and is considered a universal and agnostic biosignature. Upon interaction with unpolarized light, homochirality induces fractional circular polarization in the light…
Light waves possess multiple degrees of freedom besides intensity, including phase and polarization, that often contain important information but require complex and bulky systems for their measurement. Here we report a pair of compact…
Circular polarization spectroscopy has proven to be an indispensable tool in photosynthesis research and (bio)-molecular research in general. Oxygenic photosystems typically display an asymmetric Cotton effect around the chlorophyll…
As a basic optical element, circular polarizer plays significant roles in signal transmission, measurements and life science microscopy. Three-dimensional (3D) chiral structures have been thought to be necessary to realize circular…
The identification of a universal biosignature that could be sensed remotely is critical to the prospects for success in the search for life elsewhere in the universe. A candidate universal biosignature is homochirality, which is likely to…
The occurrence of biological homochirality is attributed to symmetry breaking mechanisms which are still debatable1. Studies of symmetry breaking require tools for monitoring the population ratios of individual chiral nano-objects, such as…
Polarization is a fundamental property of light that carries distinct and valuable information. Consequently, its precise measurement is crucial for numerous applications, including biomedical imaging, remote sensing, and optical…
At millimeter wavelengths, the atmospheric emission is circularly polarized owing to the Zeeman splitting of molecular oxygen by the Earth's magnetic field. We report a measurement of the signal in the 150 GHz band using 3 years of…
The on-chip measurement of polarization states plays an increasingly crucial role in modern sensing and imaging applications. While high-performance monolithic linearly polarized photodetectors have been extensively studied, integrated…
Linear (spectro) polarimetry is usually performed using separate photon flux measurements after spatial or temporal polarization modulation. Such classical polarimeters are limited in sensitivity and accuracy by systematic effects and…
Taking advantage of the advances in array detector technology, an imaging polarimeter (IMPOL) has been constructed for measuring linear polarization in the wavelength band from 400-800 nm. It makes use of a Wollaston prism as the analyser…
Many objects on the sky exhibit a centrosymmetric polarization pattern, particularly in cases involving single scattering around a central source. Utilizing a novel liquid crystal device (the ``theta cell'') that transforms the coordinate…
Photosynthetic eukaryotes show a remarkable variability in photosynthesis, including large differences in light harvesting proteins and pigment composition. In vivo circular spectropolarimetry enables us to probe the molecular architecture…