Accounting for Polarization–related Effects in the Measurement of the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function

When measuring the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) to characterize typical materials, the effect of the polarization of the light source or the dependence of the detector on the polarization is not usually considered, even though many studies have proven their impact in the uncertainty of the BRDF of most materials, including diffuse reflectance standards. A methodology to assess polarization-related effects proposed by other authors has been tested in this work for the measurement of the BRDF of four typical materials used for realizing white diffuse reflectance standards (ceramic tile, barium sulfate, Spectralon and Russian opal glass). Relative systematic error due to polarizing conditions is calculated as a combination of the instrument polarization bias and sample-based coefficients, and the impact of the proposed methodology on the uncertainty is discussed.