Abstract
A method for fabricating an achromatic, athermalized quarter-wave retarder is presented that involves monitoring retardance during polishing. A design specified by thicknesses alone is unlikely to meet specification due to uncertainties in birefringence. This method facilitates successful fabrication to a retardance specification despite these uncertainties. A retarder made from sapphire, , and quartz was designed, fabricated, and its performance validated for the 0.470 to wavelength region. Its specifications are as follows: at wavebands centered at 0.470, 0.660, and , the band-averaged retardance should be for all fields and retardance should change less than for a change in temperature. Retarder fabrication accommodated birefringence and thickness uncertainties via the following steps. The first plate was polished to a target thickness. The retardance spectrum of the first plate was then measured and used to determine a retardance target for the second plate. The retardance spectrum of the combined first and second plates was then used to specify a retardance target for the third plate. The retardance spectrum of the three plates in combination was then used to determine when the final thickness of the third plate was reached.
© 2011 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
W. C. Yip, H. C. Huang, and H. S. Kwok
Appl. Opt. 35(22) 4381-4384 (1996)
Jose Luis Vilas, Luis Miguel Sanchez-Brea, and Eusebio Bernabeu
Appl. Opt. 52(9) 1892-1896 (2013)
Arijit Saha, Kallol Bhattacharya, and Ajoy Kumar Chakraborty
Appl. Opt. 51(12) 1976-1980 (2012)