Polarization of Light Reflected from Chrysina Gloriosa Under Various Illuminations

When illuminated with unpolarized light, the scarab beetle Chrysina gloriosa, reflects left-handed near-circularly polarized light for a broad range of angles of incidence and wavelengths in the visible. It is, however, known that light scattered from the sky, reflected on water or transmitted through leaves often is linearly polarized. In this study we have analysed the polarization of light reflected on this beetle when illuminated with different polarization states of light. We have also analysed how the response would be with a polarization-sensitive detector. The reflected irradiance is shown to be highest when the incident light is s-polarized or left-handed polarized and the detector is unpolarized (or vice versa). In the case in which both, the source and the detector, are polarized, the irradiance is highest when both are s-polarized. On the contrary the visibility is low when the source is s-polarized and the detector is p-polarized.