Waveplate

Waveplate

Waveplate is an _optic in which the polished faces contain the optical axis.All light incidents normal to the surface are composed of components polarized paralle and peerpendicular to the axis.In such a device,light polarized parallel to the axis will propagate slower than light polarized perpendicular to the axis.As the light propagates through the optic,the phase shift between the two components increases with thickness.The phase shift is called te retardance.The most popular retarders are quarter and half wave.

With an appropriate choice of thickness,any degree of retardance may be achieved at any wavelength for which quartz is transparent.However,the minimum thickness necessary to achieve a mechanically strong part corresponds to several full waves of retardance.

Half waveplate

A half waveplate rotates linearly polaried light to any desired orientation.The rotation angle is twice the angle between the incident polarized light and optical axis.

Quarter Waveplate

When linearly polarized light is input at 45deg to the axis of a quarter waveplate ,the output is circularly polarized,similarly,input circularly polarized light is transformed into linearly polarized light.

The thickness of the quarter waveplate is such that the phase difference is 1/4 wavelength ( l /4, Zero order) or certain multiple of 1/4-wavelength [(2n+1) l /4, multiple order].

Foctek provides standard waveplate wavelengths (nm) listed as below:

355

532

632.8

808

850

980

1064

1310

1480

1550

1590

Note: Other wavelengths within the ranger of 200-2300nm are also available upon request.
Standard Specifications:
Material: Crystal Quartz
Dimension tolerance: +0.0, -0.1mm
Wavefront distortion: < l /8@632.8
Retardation tolerance: < l /500
Wavelength range: 240-2100 nm
Parallelism: <1 arc second
Surface quality: 20/10 scratches and dig
Clear aperture: >90%
AR coating: R<0.2% at central wavelength
Standard Wave: quarter-wave ( l /4), half-wave ( l /2)

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