Fast beam steering with full polarization

Fast beam steering with full polarization
control using a galvanometric optical

scanner and polarization controller
M. Jofre,1,∗ G. Anzolin,1 F. Steinlechner,1 N. Oliverio,2 J. P. Torres,1,3

V. Pruneri,1,4 and M. W. Mitchell1,4
1 ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Castelldefels, E-08860 Barcelona, Spain
2 Signadyne, Castelldefels, E-08860 Barcelona, Spain
3 Dept. Signal Theory and Communications, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, E-08034
Barcelona, Spain
4 ICREA-Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, E-08010 Barcelona, Spain
*marc.jofre@icfo.es
Abstract: Optical beam steering is a key element in many industrial and

scientific applications like in material processing, information technologies,
medical imaging and laser display. Even though galvanometer-based
scanners offer flexibility, speed and accuracy at a relatively low cost, they
still lack the necessary control over the polarization required for certain
applications. We report on the development of a polarization steerable
system assembled with a fiber polarization controller and a galvanometric
scanner, both controlled by a digital signal processor board. The system
implements control of the polarization decoupled from the pointing direc-
tion through a feed-forward control scheme. This enables to direct optical
beams to a desired direction without affecting its initial polarization state.
When considering the full working field of view, we are able to compensate
polarization angle errors larger than 0.2 rad, in a temporal window of less
than ∼ 20 ms. Given the unification of components to fully control any
polarization state while steering an optical beam, the proposed system is
potentially integrable and robust.
© 2012 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.2605) Free-space optical communication; (120.0120) Instrumentation,
measurement, and metrology; (060.5565) Quantum communications.
References and links

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1. Introduction
The steering of free-space optical beams is of great interest in many industrial and scientific
applications including material processing, information technologies, medical imaging and
laser display [1]. Precise and rapid scanning can be accomplished with galvanometric scan-
ners, which deflect a beam from a pair of galvanometer-mounted mirrors. The steering process
introduces a polarization rotation which depends in a complex but predictable way on the steer-
ing angles. Here we address the issue of polarization control in these scanners and demonstrate
a steering system capable of delivering an arbitrary polarization to an arbitrary direction at
high speed. The system can also operate in a polarization-transparent mode, in which an ar-
bitrary, unknown input polarization is preserved as the scanner directs the beam. Polarization-
controlled steering systems could reduce complexity in existing applications, including ellip-
sometry [2], polarization optical coherence tomography [3], and distant interferometry with
polarized light [4]. It may also enhance the applicability of current systems in quantum com-
munications [5, 6] and polarization-based stereoscopic projectors [7].
Among the different optical scanning techniques developed so far, galvanometer-based scan-
ners (galvos) offer flexibility, speed and accuracy at a relatively low cost. Current galvo tech-
nology achieves closed-loop bandwidths of several kilohertz even for beams with large radii.
Moreover, a resolution at the microradian level can be achieved within a large scanning field,
which is usually of the order of ±20° [8]. A galvo system is capable of deflecting s- and p-
polarization components of the beam towards the same direction, although, as it generates the
scan the corresponding change of the Fresnel coefficients [9] in the two mirrors generate a
pointing-dependent polarization state transformation of the output beam.
We report here on the development of a polarization steerable system assembled with a fiber
polarization controller (PC) and a galvanometric scanner, both controlled by a digital signal
processor (DSP) board. The system implements the control of the polarization state, which is
decoupled from the pointing direction of the galvo, by compensating with the PC the polariza-
tion transformation induced by the galvo through a feed-forward control scheme. Hence, the
method presented can be extended to similar systems where it is needed to decouple the system
general state of polarization from other transformations.
Among other applications, our solution is of practical relevance for free-space quantum com-
munication. To date, every free-space quantum key distribution (QKD) system developed has
made use of the polarization to encode quantum information. A step forward for exceeding
the current transmission length limit, around 200 km, would be to use satellites as network
nodes [10–12]. Satellite-tracking telescopes typically incorporate rapid, fine-pointing subsys-
tems employing rotating mirrors as in our galvanometer system. The dynamic polarization
control strategy described here may be also applied for polarization control in these systems
also [13, 14].
2. System overview
The integrated system implemented makes use of commercially available components, shown
in Fig. 1. A fiber-pigtailed laser diode (LD) at 850 nm generates a single polarization state with
a high degree of polarization (DOP) into the PC. The output of the PC is properly launched into
the galvo system (GV) using a fiber to free-space collimator (C). A dichroic mirror (DCM),
placed before the galvo, reflects the signal from the beacons to be imagined on the CCD through
an imaging optics system. Finally, the two imaged beacons on the CCD are processed by a
digital signal processor (DSP) to compensate relative angle rotations of the receiver with respect
to the transmitter, and galvo polarization transformations at a rate of ∼ 20 ms.
Fig. 1. Optical system scheme. (LD) denotes the laser diode, (PC) polarization controller,
(C) fiber-collimator, (CS) coordinate system, (DCM) dichroic mirror, (IO) imaging optics,
(CCD) charge-coupled device camera, (DSP) digital signal processor, (GV) galvanometric
scanner with (M1) mirror 1, (α ) angle M1, (M2) mirror 2, (β ) angle M2, (PL) polarimeter,
(B1) beacon 1 and (B2) beacon 2.
The PC is constituted by a cascade of three piezoelectric actuators which squeeze a single-
mode fiber (SMF) along different directions. The expansion or contraction of an actuator in
response to the applied driving voltage produces a variable pressure on the SMF and thus a
controlled stress-induced birefringence. Fiber PCs based on fiber squeezing with piezoelectric
actuators exhibit a number of remarkable performance: low insertion loss (0.5 dB), low polar-
ization dependent loss (< 0.1 dB), and response time of less than 100μ s. The PC is driven with
a 12-bit digital signal and the associated driver generates voltages from 0 V to 140 V for each of
the three actuators. The galvo system consists of two mirrors that provide ±20°rotation angles
(±40°optical), 5 ms response times, 2.2 arcsec angular resolution and has 20 mm mirror diam-
eter. The CCD camera has a frame rate of 108 fps at full resolution with 10μ s exposure time
and 8μ m×8μ m square pixels. In front of the CCD camera an imaging optics system with 70
mm effective focal length is placed to get 3.44°field of view (FOV). The aperture of the galvo
is large enough to resolve the two beacons with a few cm spatial separation at 2 m distance.
3. System operation
The polarization transformation introduced by the galvo and by the relative Tx-Rx angle of
rotation are conveniently described by Stokes-Mueller formalism. The optical properties of a
two-axis galvo optical scanner constituted by a pair of rotating planar mirrors are described
in [15]. The polarization state matrix description of the system is
Sout = R (χ ) · G (α , β ) · PC (φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) · Sin . (1)
R (χ ) is the Tx-Rx orientation matrix, G is the galvo matrix as a function of the respective
the mirror rotation angles α and β , PC the equivalent matrix of the PC as a function of the
introduced phases of each of the three actuators used to compensate the system polarization
change, Sin and Sout the input and output Stokes vectors.
3.1. Galvanometer scanner model

The galvo scanner used is assembled with two rotating mirrors as shown in Fig. 2(a). The
first mirror (M1) is rotated by 45°around the y-axis and then by an angle Γ1 = 15°around
the x-axis. The second mirror (M2), is rotated by an angle Γ2 = 45°around the x-axis. The
mirrors of the current system were specifically designed to minimize the difference in loss
between s- and p- polarization components for an operational wavelength of 850nm. Figure
2(b) shows a two-layer model of the galvo mirrors. The layers are made a protective dielectric
layer of quartz (SIO2 ) with 1.43 refractive index and thickness of 100nm, and the silver (Ag)
reflective substrate with a refractive index of 0.152 + 5.721i. The silver layer can be considered
to have an infinite thickness due to the short penetration depth of the beam at the operation
wavelength. Considering the impinging angles of the optical beam and the mirrors structure
model, the Mueller matrix description of the galvo system consists in the concatenation of
a reference-frame rotation and reflection Mueller matrices. First, a reference-frame rotation
before impinging on M1, a reflection Mueller matrix on M1 considering the correspondent
Fresnel coefficients depending on the angle α , a reference-frame rotation before impinging
on M2, a reflection matrix on M2 computing the Fresnel coefficient with respect the angle β
and final reference frame matrix rotation [15]. Using this model, the introduced overall phases
and attenuations at the output between s- and p-polarization components can be computed.
The difference in attenuation for the s- and p-polarization components introduces an effective
polarization dependent loss smaller than 0.05 and is not compensated.
3.2. Receiver orientation angle

The relative Tx-Rx orientation angle χ is retrieved by imaging the receiver through the gal-
vanometer system and computing the apparent rotation angle. This imaging task is facilitated
Air
100nm SIO2
Ag
(a) Galvo system model. (b) Galvo mirror model.
Fig. 2. Galvo scanner system model. (a) Scheme of the galvo scanner system, with the
reference frame used in the calculations. An example of the optical path of a ray is indicated
by the red line. (b) Physical model of the galvo mirrors substrate. The structure of the
mirrors considers a quasi-real model of the galvo mirrors two-layer-compound made of a
protective dielectric layer of quartz (SIO2 ), and the reflective substrate of silver (Ag).
by two beacons, one brighter than the other, mounted on either side of the receiver. Figure
3(a) sketches the angle measurement algorithm. χ is the angle between the center vertical axis
of the CCD image and the clockwise angle to the brighter spot. The rotation χ is converted
into Mueller matrix formalism as Eq. (2). Notice that the galvo system rotates by 90°an image,
independently of the pointing direction. In particular, for our demonstration, we consider as ref-
erence the zero pointing direction which already involves a 90°image rotation. Therefore, for
any angle χ corresponding to the rotation of polarization to apply, relative to the zero pointing
direction, we have ⎡ ⎤
1 0 0 0
⎢0 cos (χ ) sin (χ ) 0⎥
R (χ ) = ⎢
⎣0 − sin (χ ) cos (χ ) 0⎦ .
⎥ (2)
0 0 0 1
3.3. Polarization controller

The transfer function of piezoelectric actuators generally show hysteretic behavior [16], initial
loading curve and are rate dependent [17, 18]. While a highly accurate modeling of these ef-
fects would allow precise compensation in arbitrary trajectories [19], here we adopt a simple
compensation scheme which consists in forcing each actuator to stay in a particular hysteresis
cycle previously well calibrated. The cycle is defined by the extreme voltages Vmin = 0 V and
Vmax = 75 V. The first step consists in warming-up the three actuators by injecting sinusoidal
voltages peaking at Vmin and Vmax , to drive the system to the initial state. Subsequent changes
always proceed by a return to 0V, during a short time (100 μ s), and then to the final voltage V .
To overtake the rate dependent behavior, we force the system to change every 20 ms.
Controlled stress along a SMF induce a variable linear birefringence between parallel and
perpendicular components respect to the applied force [20,21]. Each PC actuator k (k = 1, 2, 3)
Beacon 1
Beacon 2
(2)
(1)
(3) (0) (4)
Fig. 3. Imaged beacons to retrieve the Tx-Rx relative angle rotation χ . (a) The angle is
computed between the central vertical axis of the CCD image and the clockwise angle
to the brighter beam spot. Notice that one of the beams is brighter than the other to eas-
ily identify both spots. Five pointing directions are considered with galvo mirrors’ an-
gles and particular receiver orientation rotation, which are grouped in the triplet (α ,β ,χ ):
(0) zero pointing corresponds to (0°,0°,0°), (1) pointing 1 (3.56°,12.19°,336.47°), (2)
pointing 2 (18.66°,8.37°,93.06°), (3) pointing 3 (7.99°,−0.13°,4.01°) and (4) pointing 4
(−4.03°,3.30°,243°).
is equivalent to a wave plate with a variable phase retard φk and a fixed direction of the fast axis.
Hence, the Mueller matrix associated to an actuator is equivalent to the matrix of an elliptical
retarder expressed in terms of the axis n̂k and the phase retard between the components along
the fast and slow axis φk [22]. Furthermore, a preload is present in each actuator so that they are
always in contact with the SMF, in order to have a response for any voltage V > 0. As a result, a
non-null phase retard φ k is introduced by each actuator for zero voltage. A general description
of the PC is given by the concatenation of the three actuators A as
PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 + φ 3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ). (3)
A corresponds to a polarization rotation around the axis n̂ = (nx , ny , nz ) by an angle φ , as
A(n̂, φ ) ≡ I cos φ + n× sin φ + n̂ ⊗ n̂(1 − cos φ ) (4)
where I is the identity matrix,

⎡ ⎤
0 0 0 0
⎢0 0 −nz ny ⎥
⎢
n× ≡ ⎣ ⎥. (5)
0 nz 0 −nx ⎦
0 −ny nx 0
and ⎡ ⎤
1 0 0 0
⎢0 n2x nx ny nx nz ⎥
⎥.
n̂ ⊗ n̂ ≡ ⎢ (6)
⎣0 nx ny n2y ny nz ⎦
0 nx nz ny nz n2z
Initially n̂k , φk (V ) and φ k are unknown. We note that the system can be described in a
more practical formulation where φ k are removed from the rotation matrix A(n̂, φ + φ ) =
A(n̂, φ )A(n̂, φ ), so that
PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ). (7)
By scanning the voltage V3 , we learn n̂3 and φ3 (V ), but not φ 3 . For the remainder of the proce-
dure, we leave V3 = 0, so that φ3 = 0, and the rotation A(n̂3 , φ3 ) is the identity, giving
PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = ·A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ) · A−1 (n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ). (8)
We note that A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ) · A−1 (n̂3 , φ 3 ) is simply another rotation A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ),
about another unknown axis n̂2 . As before, we sweep V2 to find n̂2 and φ2 (V ) but not φ 2 . We
set φ2 = 0 for the next step, and find
PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ) · A(n̂2 , φ 2 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) (9)
where n̂1 is the new axis for the first actuator, considering the rotations by both φ 3 and φ 2 . After
finding n̂1 and φ1 (V ),
PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 ) · A(n̂1 , φ 1 ) · A(n̂2 , φ 2 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ). (10)
The last three terms, which are unknown, can be combined into a single rotation Mueller matrix
M, which is independent of drive voltages. Thus, Eq. (3) is equivalently described as,
PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 ) · M. (11)
Note that Eq. (3) describes an arbitrary polarization rotation, and thus suffices to describe the
effect of the polarization controller including possible rotations due to birefringence in the SM
input and output fibers.
3.3.1. Differential phase calibration

The calibration process for the PC consists in recording the output Stokes parameters with the
polarimeter at zero pointing while a given PC actuator is voltage scanned from 0 V to 75 V and
back for several cycles while the remaining actuators remain at 0 V. Zero pointing corresponds
to the pointing direction of the galvo for zero angle rotation of its mirrors. Figure 4 shows the
measured Stokes parameters through the voltage scan of PC actuator 1. Similar measurement
records are obtained for the other two actuators of the PC.
The output polarization state includes polarization rotations from the galvo due to the fact
that the PL measures the polarization at the output of the system at zero pointing. To remove
the galvo contribution, we apply the inverse of the Mueller matrix describing the galvo trans-
formation for zero pointing. For clarification, the measurements with the PL could have been
taken for any other pointing direction and consequently the contribution from the galvo to be
removed would correspond to the inverse of the galvo polarization transformation for the par-
ticular pointing direction used. The galvo Mueller matrix has been constructed analytically
considering the two-mirror galvo model described in detail in [15]. The resulting polarizations,
corresponding to only the PC transformation, are shown in Fig. 5. The current data directly
allows to retrieve (n̂3 , n̂2 , n̂1 ) and the relative phases versus drive voltage φ (Vk ), computed by
the angle subtended between consecutive polarization states, as shown in Fig. 6. This procedure
finds the phase relation relative to the applied voltage including hysteresis both when increas-
ing and when decreasing the driving voltage, shown in Fig. 7. The measured voltage-to-phase
Actuator 1
1
0.5
1
0
S
−0.5
−1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
0.5
2
0
S
−0.5
−1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
0.5
3
0
S
−0.5
−1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Measurement points
Fig. 4. Stokes parameters measured while voltage-scanning actuator 1. The recorded Stokes
parameters sequence follows a squared cosine function. It is repeated three and a half times
to acquire several cycles through a specific PC actuator. The data is periodically sampled
asynchronously. Each red circle corresponds to an identified voltage and Stokes parameters
measurement pair. Black points that do not fit the pattern correspond to data samples at
the return instant to 0V of the PC driving strategy. (top) S1 , (middle) S2 and (bottom) S3
Stokes parameters. Similar measurement records are obtained for actuators 2 and 3 of the
PC.
Actuator 1
1
0.5
1 0
S
−0.5
−1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
0.5
2
0
S
−0.5
−1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
0.5
3
0
S
−0.5
−1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Measurement points
Fig. 5. Processed Stokes parameters obtained by removing from the raw data the polariza-
tion transformation contribution of the galvo. To remove the galvo contribution, the inverse
of the galvo Mueller matrix for zero pointing is applied. (top) S1 , (middle) S2 and (bottom)
S3 Stokes parameters. Similar measurement records are obtained for actuators 2 and 3 of
the PC.
Fig. 6. Polarization state measurement, from the PC data, on the Poincare sphere and asso-
ciated actuator
axis n̂k for each of the three PC actuators. For the current measurement the
different n̂3 , n̂2 , n̂1 are oriented in azimuth and elevation (θ ,ϕ ) as follows: (29.52°,9.61°)
actuator 1, (122.88°,−6.22°) actuator 2 and (45.15°,43.35°) actuator 3. The first and the
third actuators are similarly oriented along the same direction, while the second actuator is
at 90°with respect to them.
Actuator 1 Actuator 2 Actuator 3
10 10 10
Rel. phase retard [rad]

8 8 8
6 6 6
4 4 4
2 2 2
0 0 0
0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60 0 20 40 60
Voltage [V] Voltage [V] Voltage [V]
Fig. 7. Introduced relative phase retard with respect to the applied driving voltage for each
PC actuator. Hysteresis has been strongly reduced by returning the drive voltage to zero
before each measurement, and relatively slow driving speeds. The phase retard retrieved is
relative to 0 V driving voltage. Blue circles (red squares) show the phase trajectory with
increasing (decreasing) voltage.
Actuator 1 Actuator 2 Actuator 3
60 60 60
Voltage [V]
Voltage [V]
Voltage [V]
40 40 40
20 20 20
0 0 0
0 5 10 0 5 10 0 5 10
Rel. phase retard [rad] Rel. phase retard [rad] Rel. phase retard [rad]
Fig. 8. Polarization controller inferred transfer function. Phase to voltage relation for each
of the three PC actuators. The ascending and descending curves are each fit with 6th-order
polynomials for real-time computation. With proper combination of the three PC phase
retards, it is possible to generate any rotation matrix.
relation is inverted computationally to obtain the phase-to-voltage relation, shown in Fig. 8.
The ascending and descending curves are each fit with 6th-order polynomials.
The calibration procedure compensates also for birefringent and geometrical effects in the
input SMF to the PC. The implemented scheme overcomes this rotation by considering extra
relative phase retards and PC actuators’ (n̂3 , n̂2 , n̂1 ) axis rotations while calibrating. In prac-
tice, we find these effects to be stable within 0.1 rad over 10 minutes. Thus, the calibration
parameters are valid within this time window. The basic operation cycle of the system is as
follows: first, the PC is calibrated taking approximately 2 minutes, most probably having the
specific application using this system paused; second, once the new calibration parameters are
updated, the system can be used for 8 minutes. Clearly, this basic operation cycle can be re-
peated continuously for long operation of the system. The operation of the system could be
improved by placing a polarimeter control system together with the CCD imaging system, to
allow continuous calibration of the PC.
3.3.2. Calibration of M
M is fully determined by a polarization rotation and the phase between non-orthogonal po-
larization states. This enables to operate the system in a polarization-transparent mode, i.e.,
any input polarization state is maintained through out the system. The retrieval of M for
polarization-transparent calibration requires the measurement of the Stokes parameters, at the
output of the system, for two different but well-known non-orthogonal input polarizations. Such
a calibration requires an extra optical device that provides a controlled polarization state at
the input, such as a deterministic polarization controller or, if the provided light’s polariza-
tion is completely fixed, a polarization modulator suffices. Then, knowing the input polariza-
tion, and the effect of the polarization controller as a function of (((V1 ), (V2 ), (V3 ))), we can
set (((V1 ), (V2 ), (V3 ))) to produce the identity for the concatenation of the parts of the system
known, I = R (χ )· G (α , β ) · A(n̂3 , φ3 (V3 )) · A(n̂2 , φ2 (V2 )) · A(n̂1 , φ1 (V1 )). At present, M is com-
puted by solving the non-linear system of equations Eq. (12),
Sout = I · M (θ , ϕ , δ ) · Sin
1 1
. (12)
Sout = I · M (θ , ϕ , δ ) · Sin
2 2
Sout and Sout are the output polarizations corresponding to the input polarizations Sin and Sin .
1 2 1 2
In our demonstration, we aim at maintaining a given output polarization, measured at zero
pointing angle, at any other pointing direction. Therefore, polarization-transparent operation
is not strictly needed. This requires only to identify the polarization rotation measuring the
transformation of a single input polarization state, which reduces the system Eq. (12) to,
Sout = I · M (θ , ϕ , δ ) · Sin . (13)
1 1
3.3.3. Polarization compensation

Any polarization state transformation through the system consists in a rotation of the Poincare
sphere. With the proper combination of the three phase retards (φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) of the PC it is possi-
ble to generate any rotation matrix. Hence, the overall polarization rotation compensation which
the PC has to introduce can be derived from Eq. (1), and consists in generating the inverse of
the galvo and the relative Tx-Rx orientation angles as
PC (φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = G (α , β )−1 · R−1 (χ ) . (14)
The three particular phases to achieve in Eq. (14) are computed using a non-linear fitting
routine which minimizes the square of the difference between the required target matrix, given
the PC measured parameters.
4. Polarization compensation performance
The mobile polarization analyzer system consists of a polarimeter (PL) with two 639 nm fiber-
collimated laser beacons mounted on opposite sides pointing to the transmitter. The two bea-
cons are imaged using a charge-coupled device camera (CCD) to retrieve any relative angle
rotation between the receiver PL and the transmitter galvo. The PL consists of a rotating quarter-
wave plate, a fixed polarizer and a photodiode with ±0.25°azimuth and ellipticity angle accu-
racy. The laser beacons are mounted at 60 mm radius with respect the center aperture of the PL
and are collimated to a 1 mm beam waist.
Five pointing directions were considered to quantify the performance of the system, with
arbitrary placements and rotations of the receiver PL. The target pointing directions are
described by the angles of the galvo mirrors and receiver orientation rotation, grouped in
the triplet (α ,β ,χ ). Figure 3(0) shows the zero pointing which corresponds to (0°,0°,0°),
considering it as the reference. The other four pointing directions shown in Fig. 3 are:
(1) pointing 1 (3.56°,12.19°,336.47°), (2) pointing 2 (18.66°,8.37°,93.06°), (3) pointing 3
(7.99°,−0.13°,4.01°) and (4) pointing 4 (−4.03°,3.30°,243°).
A manual polarization controller was added before the PC in order to generate different
input polarization states, taking them as reference at the zero pointing. Four extra different
pointing directions with arbitrary receiver rotations have been considered, taking four different
polarization states measurements at each pointing direction. The error angle Δε is defined as
the absolute arc angle between the final polarization state and the reference polarization state
at the zero pointing direction as
1
Δε = cos−1 cos [2 (θ px − θ pz )] cos [2 (ϕ px − ϕ pz )] . (15)
2
θ px and ϕ px are azimuth and ellipticity for a particular final pointing direction, and θ pz and ϕ pz
are azimuth and ellipticity for the zero pointing, considering an initial polarization state.
Figure 9 shows the error angles measured with the receiving PL, separated in columns
by pointing directions. They are identified in color markers for compensated and uncompen-
sated system operation. Blue-circle marker for Tx-Rx and galvo compensation, green-diamond
marker for galvo compensation, cyan-square marker for Tx-Rx compensation or red-cross
marker for no compensation. Error angles are plotted in logarithmic scale, 10 · log10 (Δε ), for
clearer visualization of error angles close to 0 rad.
From Fig. 9 we see that the error angle due to the galvo for different pointing directions
is small. In contrast, the error angle when not compensating for the Tx-Rx rotation angle is
directly proportional to χ . When the system performs the compensation, the error angle is
smaller than 0.2 rad. The main contribution to the error angle when compensating is due to
system calibration loss due to drifts both in the SMF fibers and PC, and small pointing mis-
alignment between the Tx and Rx along the line of propagation due to the manual placement
of the PL. The performance appears to be limited by hysteresis in the PC actuators, which is
largely but not completely cancelled by our min-to-max driving strategy. A driving strategy
based on a tracking control of hysteretic piezoelectric actuator using adaptive rate-dependent
controller [19] could reduce this error significantly. We believe that 0.1 is probably the lower
limit given by the typical DOP degradation of commercial PCs. Typically, PC performance is
limited by the polarization dependent loss (PDL) to about 0.1 rad, while other parameters such
as state-of-polarization (SOP) resolution and accuracy are well below this limit, < 0.01 rad and
< 0.002 rad respectively. A common performance parameter in quantum communication appli-
cations is the quantum bit error ratio (QBER). QBER is defined as the number of correct sorted
qubits to the number of detected qubits in the proper measuring bases, thus correct and wrong
sorted qubits [23,24]. The relation between the QBER and the error angle follows a squared co-
Tx−Rx & galvo comp.
Galvo comp.
Tx−Rx comp.
No comp.
5
Error angle, 10 · log 10 (Δ)

0
−5
−10
−15
−20
1 2 3 4
Pointing direction
Fig. 9. Error angle for different polarization states. The polarization states are meas-
ured with the receiving polarimeter. Different compensation configurations are presented,
compensation of the Tx-Rx and galvo (blue-circle marker), galvo compensation (green-
diamond marker), Tx-Rx orientation (cyan-square marker) and no compensation (red-cross
marker). For each pointing direction and each compensation configuration, four different
polarization states are used, taking as reference the zero pointing. Error angles are plotted
in logarithmic scale, 10 · log10 (Δε ), for clearer visualization of error angles close to 0 rad.
When the system performs the compensation, the error angle is below 0.2 rad.
sine function as QBER= 1 − cos2 (Δε ). The upper error angle of 0.2 rad corresponds to 3.95%
QBER, while an improved driving strategy could achieve 0.1 rad or 1% QBER. Most quantum
protocols run with QBERs lower than 11%, thus the performance achieved is compliant with
quantum key distribution protocols and validates the system to be used in free-space quantum
communication links.
5. Conclusions
We have demonstrated a steerable optical system based on a feed-forward control with decou-
pled control of the polarization state. It is possible to assemble the system from commercially
available components. The system is able to compensate the polarization controller particular
hysteresis cycles and initial loading behavior, the particular galvo polarization transformation
which depends on the pointing direction and the relative orientation rotation of the receiver.
The system demonstrated here enables to direct optical beams to a desired direction without
affecting its polarization state or, if required, to perform a change of the polarization state as
required by the receiver properties. The algorithm developed computes the voltages to apply
to the polarization controller provided the two galvo mirrors angles and the relative Tx-Rx
orientation rotation angle. With a simple hysteresis correction, the polarization error angle while
steering the optical beam over the working field of view is smaller than 0.2 rad. More accurate
hysteresis compensation could reduce this error further. The experimental compensation was
carried out in less than ∼ 20 ms. This response time is probably limited by the mechanical
response time of the galvanometer.
Although this demonstration used a transmitter and a receiver located in different places,
we note that our polarization control solution is also applicable in receiver-less applications
such as polarization optical coherence tomography, where transmitter and receiver share many
elements of a common optical system. As there is no fundamental obstacle for the integration
of the optical and mechanical components used here, robust integrated control systems can be
built using this control strategy.
Acknowledgments
This work was carried out with the financial support of Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
(Spain) through grants TEC2010-14832, FIS2007-60179, FIS2008-01051, FIS2010-14831 and
FET-Open grant number: 255914 (PHORBITECH).

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Fast beam steering with full polarization

control using a galvanometric optical

M. Jofre,1,∗ G. Anzolin,1 F. Steinlechner,1 N. Oliverio,2 J. P. Torres,1,3

Abstract: Optical beam steering is a key element in many industrial and

References and links

The PC is constituted by a cascade of three piezoelectric actuators which squeeze a single-

3.1. Galvanometer scanner model

3.2. Receiver orientation angle

(a) Galvo system model. (b) Galvo mirror model.

3.3. Polarization controller

(3) (0) (4)

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 + φ 3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ). (3)

A corresponds to a polarization rotation around the axis n̂ = (nx , ny , nz ) by an angle φ , as

A(n̂, φ ) ≡ I cos φ + n× sin φ + n̂ ⊗ n̂(1 − cos φ ) (4)

where I is the identity matrix,

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ). (7)

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = ·A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 + φ 2 ) · A−1 (n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ). (8)

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ) · A(n̂2 , φ 2 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) (9)

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 ) · A(n̂1 , φ 1 ) · A(n̂2 , φ 2 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ). (10)

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 ) · M. (11)

3.3.1. Differential phase calibration

Rel. phase retard [rad]

Rel. phase retard [rad]

Actuator 1 Actuator 2 Actuator 3

3.3.3. Polarization compensation

Error angle, 10 · log 10 (Δ)

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PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂1 , φ1 + φ 1 ) · A(n̂2 , φ 2 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ) (9)

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 ) · A(n̂1 , φ 1 ) · A(n̂2 , φ 2 ) · A(n̂3 , φ 3 ). (10)

PC(φ1 , φ2 , φ3 ) = A(n̂3 , φ3 ) · A(n̂2 , φ2 ) · A(n̂1 , φ1 ) · M. (11)