Output polarization states of a corner cube reflector irradiated at non-normal incidence

A method has been developed for determining the polarization state of the retro-reflected beam from a corner cube irradiated with an input beam of arbitrary polarization state and of arbitrary tilt angle to the cube. Experimentally, the output beam consists of six distinct beamlets of different polarization states that are focused into six non-overlapping regions in the active area of the detector. The overall polarization state of the beam as measured by the photodetector can thus be represented by the incoherent superposition of the polarization states of the six beamlets. Experiments have been performed that verify the theory for a linearly polarized input beam irradiating the corner cube.