Coded aperture full-stokes imaging spectropolarimeter

•A Coded aperture full-Stokes imaging spectropolarimeter (CAFIS) based on polarization spectrum modulation components (a rotatable retarder and a rotatable polarizer) and coded aperture spectral imager is presented.•The full-Stokes spectral images with the camera’s intrinsic spatial resolution are recovered from four CCD measurements with different orientations of the retarder and the polarizer.•Bigger weighting coefficients for specific Stokes parameters in the CAFIS lead to better reconstruction accuracy, and the weighing coefficients can be changed with different configurations of the polarization spectrum modulation components. A coded aperture full-Stokes imaging spectropolarimeter (CAFIS) based on a combination of coded aperture spectral imager and polarization spectrum modulation is demonstrated. The CAFIS uses a rotatable retarder and a rotatable polarizer as polarization spectrum modulation components to modulate the polarization information on the spectrum first, then the CAFIS achieves aperture coding with a digital micromirror device (DMD). After passing through a dispersive element, the coded polarization modulated spectral images are recorded by a CCD camera. The polarization modulated spectral images with the camera’s intrinsic spatial resolution are estimated with sparsity-constrained optimization from the acquired images, and the full-Stokes spectral images are computed by the demodulation algorithm. The principle and feasibility are verified via simulations. The relationship between the configuration of polarization spectrum modulation components and the reconstruction quality is investigated in this paper as well.