Design And Performance Analysis Of Flake Composite Phase Delay

Optical Phase Retarders are not only important optical components in laser technique and polarized light technique fields, but also the basic optical phase modulators that introduce a phase shift between orthogonal and linearly polarized component when light transmittes through them. The common are quarter-wave plate and half-wave plate. Fitted with other polarimetric elements, they can realize converting and rotating of polarization states, and modifying of all kinds of light wave. So we can say that everywhere use polarized light technique can hardly work without optical phase retarders.The accuracy and stability of wave plates can be significant factors in achieving the accuracy or precision of the measurement. A zero-order wave plate is an ideal device with superior properties, but it is difficult to be realized in crystalline materials except mica. However mica wave plates also have many shortcomings and therefore are not suitable in Precision measurements. Single-element birefringent wave plates, the most widely available type of wave plates, are based on the difference in refractive indices experienced by orthogonal and linearly polarized light beams in uniaxial crystals, because their retardance varies with the angle of incidence, temperature, and the wavelength, their stability of retardance is very poor. And The refractive indices depend on the wavelength so strongly that the retardation is close to wavelength, here we call this dependent relationship the birefringent dispersion of material. This is the reason why conventional optical phase retarders are mostly applied to a single wavelength but can't be used to varied wavelength, so they are inconvenient to handleCompound linear retarders, not so sensitive to the angle of incidence or temperature . With improved optical Properties, it have attracted great attention in the international scientific community. However it is a new field in China . In view of this situation, we decided to design and analyze compound wave plate.In the first section, the status in today's technology, the range of applications and the necessity of the design of the compound wave plates. The second section, we make detailed theoretical deduce on two or treer identical material composite wave plate and Jones matrix. Finally we have a memo introduce about composite theory of varied material.In the third section, the effect of changes of temperature and the angle of incidence on the retardance of wave plates are described in detail on the basis of the first half theoretical analyses. Experiments show that a compound zero-order wave plates behaves like a true zero-order wave plate in the aspects of its variation with temperature and wavelength, but it behaves like a multiple-order wave plate in the aspects of its variation with the angle of incidence. Another design of the retarded consisting of one positive uniaxial crystal and one negative uniaxial crystal has been suggested. The retardance of such a wave plate is less sensitive to the angle of incidence, but somewhat more sensitive to temperature than a typical compound zero-order wave plate.In The fourth part, we make a detailed analyze and discuss on each method by which flat-plate birefringent achromatic wave plates are made and generalize the theoretical retardation curve. Then we put forward our own optimum design scheme based on flat-plate three-in-one composite achromatic wave-plate in response to theory curve of retardation. Both theory analysis and experimental result show that through the optimum design scheme we can improve achromatic range and accuracy by electing variant composite method, adjusting composite angle exactly.The innovation of our work described in this paper mainly has two point : One, made the generalized analysis to the wave plate parameter stability , take this as the foundation we had devised two kind of high accuracy compound wave plate, which can effectively enhance the parameter stability. Two, we put forward our own optimum design scheme based on flat-plate three-in-one composite achromatic wave-plate in response to theory curve of retardation. Through theoptimum design scheme we can improve achromatic range and accuracyUses our research results, We provided this compound wave plates to many domestic units, the user reflection is very good. Along with our country Laser Technology research and the application fast development, the request to this kind of compound wave plate will be more and more big, its application prospect will certainly to be extremely broad. Thus the analysis of the retardance stability and the design method of retarders are very useful.