Abstract

Phase retarders and especially quarter wave plates are important components in an optical laboratory which have also found commercial applications in the optical disk. There have been previously reported attempts to replace the expensive crystalline quarter wave plate by dielectric thin film structures. Apfel¹ showed that the phase retardation obtainable with periodic multilayer mirrors is less than 30°. Broad band multilayer mirrors with staggered thicknesses^2,3 can produce much larger phase retardations; however, these phase retardations usually vary rapidly with wavelength or angle of incidence.

© 1984 Optical Society of America