© The Authors 2018Álvarez-Herrrero, AlbertoGarcía Parejo, PilarSilva-López, Manuel2026-01-212026-01-212018-04-18Optic Express 26(9): 12038-120481094-4087https://opg.optica.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-26-9-12038https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12666/1634The authors are very grateful to all the members of the SO/PHI INTA team. This work would not have been possible without them.Liquid crystal variable retarders (LCVR) based polarimeters perform temporal polarization modulation by applying a sequence of driving voltages to introduce different optical retardances. However, even after a careful design and fabrication, manufacturing tolerances (i.e., slight optical axis misalignments, instrument residual polarization, optical activity in the LCVRs...) or the final system configuration (i.e., LCVRs in a convergent optical beam, thermal gradient across the clear aperture...) produce deviations from the ideal setup. As a consequence, all of these effects can reduce the polarimetric modulation efficiency of the device and, therefore, its signal-to-noise ratio. Hence, the voltage sequence applied according to the LCVR calibration curves may not be suitable to reach the optimal theoretical polarimetric efficiencies. In this work, a systematic fine tuning method for the LCVRs driving voltages is described an experimentally demonstrated.engAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/article10.1364/OE.26.012038info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess