title: Variable ultrabroadband and narrowband composite polarization retarders.
abstract: We propose and experimentally demonstrate novel types of composite sequences of half-wave and quarter-wave polarization retarders, permitting operation at either ultrabroad spectral bandwidth or narrow bandwidth. The retarders are composed of stacked standard half-wave retarders and quarter-wave retarders of equal thickness. To our knowledge, these home-built devices outperform all commercially available compound retarders, made of several birefringent materials.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. thorsten.peters@physik.tu‐darmstadt.de
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: Svetoslav S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Ivanov
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Englisch
authors.forename: Andon A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Rangelov
authors.forename: Nikolay V
authors.initials: NV
authors.lastname: Vitanov
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Halfmann