Polarization characteristics and power analysis of 532 nm laser in smoke environment

Abstract Polarization technology has broad application prospects in a smoke environment characterized by irregular particles, anisotropic particles, and inhomogeneous media. Therefore, it is important to study polarization characteristics in a smoke environment. This study creates a smoke environment by burning smoke cakes with controllable quality to study the polarization characteristics. Subsequently, forward transmission polarization test platforms are constructed using a laser with a wavelength of 532 nm. The degree of polarization (DOP) and the power variations of polarized light are measured. Additionally, we use the power in a single polarized state to characterize the light intensity and also study its relationship with DOP. The experimental results indicate that the power in a single polarized state for left-hand circularly polarized light and right-hand circularly polarized light is nearly identical. The same result is also observed for linearly polarized light. The comparison of trends between total power and DOP indicates that DOP can more accurately represent the transmission characteristics of light in environments with high smoke concentrations.