abstract
- © 2020 Optical Society of America.We determine the optical phase ¿ (dynamic and geometric) introduced by a system described by an inhomogeneous Jones matrix. We show that there are two possible scenarios: (a) ¿ has a finite range of ¿ ¿ [¿min, ¿max]. We calculate both limits and their corresponding polarization states analytically. (b) ¿ spans the full range of ¿ ¿ (¿¿, ¿]. This scenario leads to the existence of two input polarization states whose output states are orthogonal. We call these states ortho-transmission states (OTSs) and find them analytically. We study the inverse problem of designing an optical system with OTSs given by the user.