In this paper, we propose a liquid-crystal mi-cropolarimeter (LCMP) array with high spatial resolution for real-time linear and circular polarization imaging in visible spectrum. LCMPs for extracting 0°, 90° linearly and right-handed circularly polarized components of incident light are implemented by micro-patterning a liquid crystal (LC) layer on top of a 45° oriented ultra-thin metal-wire-grid polarizer (MWGP). A compact LCMP pitch of 5µm×5µm is achieved with sulfonic-dye-1 (SD1) as the LC alignment material. In addition, these micron-scale LCMPs feature ~ 5µm overall thickness and ~1100 extinction ratio. Reported experimental results validate the concept of real-time linear and circular polarization image sensing and processing with targets illuminated by collimated artificial light.
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