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There are two main kinds of waveplates. The first kind, called a half-wave plate, changes the direction of light that’s polarized in a straight line. The second kind, known as a quarter-wave plate, can change light that’s polarized in a straight line into light that’s polarized in a circle, and can also do the reverse. Additionally, a quarter-wave plate can be used to create a special kind of polarization called elliptical polarization.
A phase retarder is a useful tool for manipulating polarized light by making the optical path length for one of the orthogonal polarizations different than the other. Generally speaking, quarter-wave retarders cause a phase shift in one electric field component which results in circularly polarized light. Half-wave retarders produce a λ/2 phase shift and rotate the polarization of linearly polarized light to twice the angle between the retarder’s fast axis and the plane of polarization. Passing circularly polarized light through a half-wave plate changes the “handedness” of the polarization.
Why Choose Meadowlark Wavepates?
Industry-Leading Metrology – Our proprietary measurement techniques provide you with extremely accurate calibration measurements for every waveplate/ retarder we ship.
High Quality and Precision – When selecting a waveplate, key performance features must be considered; examples of these include wavelength dependence, temperature sensitivity, acceptance angle, response time and aperture size. Our waveplate selection chart provides an at-a-glance view of our standard retarders; as always, Meadowlark solutions engineers are happy to assist you in the process of selecting a retarder that works best for your application.
Custom Solutions – Space flight retarders, superachromatic retarders from 500 to 1200 nm, retarders attached to beamsplitter cubes, retarder coatings applied to lenses and mirrors, variable retarders with switching speeds in picoseconds, ferroelectric liquid crystal retarders switching at low voltages from 50 to 100 microseconds, and more.
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