title: Dispersion of linearly polarized light propagating in a thin birefringent plate.
abstract: We analyze theoretically the dispersion of linearly polarized light propagating in a uniaxial anisotropic medium where multibeam interference is present. Explicit expressions of the group-delay dispersion for transmitting waves are derived for the simplest situation, and the effect of dispersion on pulse broadening is analyzed for a few selected cases. Our results reveal that at normal incidence and in the situation where the optic axis is parallel to the surface of birefringent plate (in the x-y plane), the dispersion of the refracted wave decreases with the extent of birefringence. In particular, the dispersion for the electric field parallel to the polarization direction of the incident light changes with the rotation angle between the optic axis and the polarization direction of the incident field, whereas the dispersion for the refracted field whose direction is vertical to the polarization of incident light is independent of this angle. For oblique incidence, dispersion varies substantially for different incident angles. In the situation where the optic axis is in the x-z plane at either normal or oblique incidence, the dispersion increases in a periodically oscillating manner as a function of the relative thickness of the birefringent plate.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Modern Optics Nankai University, Key Laboratory of Opto-electronic Information Science and Technology, Education Ministry of China, Tianjin 300071, China.
authors.forename: Xifeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Yaqing
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Youbo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Tiequn
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xiaonong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu