Various techniques exist for characterizing a birefringent fluid by means of extinction angle and birefringence. We summarize these techniques and present a new procedure. The approach derives the first three Stokes parameters from images of a polarization camera and uses them to calculate the corresponding streaming birefringence by applying the Mueller matrix calculus. The required theory and a suitable experimental set-up are described. We apply the new measurement procedure to two Xanthan gum solutions and characterize their optical properties. The results agree with published data. Advantages of the new measurement technique are ease of handling, high robustness against optical imperfections and the possibility to measure a continuous response to shear in a single test series.

存在多种技术用于通过消光角和双折射来表征双折射流体。我们总结了这些技术并提出了一个新程序。该方法从偏振相机的图像中导出前三个斯托克斯参数，并通过应用穆勒矩阵演算使用它们来计算相应的流式双折射。描述了所需的理论和合适的实验装置。我们将新的测量程序应用于两种黄原胶溶液并表征它们的光学特性。结果与公布的数据一致。新测量技术的优点是易于处理、对光学缺陷的高度鲁棒性以及在单个测试系列中测量对剪切的连续响应的可能性。