title: Optimal achromatic wave retarders using two birefringent wave plates.
abstract: Two plates of different birefringence material can be combined to obtain an achromatic wave retarder. In this work, we achieve a correction for the overall retardation of the system that extends the relation to any azimuth. Current techniques for the design of achromatic wave retarders do not present a parameter that characterizes its achromatism on a range of wavelengths. Thus, an achromatic degree has been introduced, in order to determine the optimal achromatic design composed with retarder plates for a spectrum of incident light. In particular, we have optimized a quarter retarder using two wave plates for the visible spectrum. Our technique has been compared to previous results, showing significant improvement.
authors.affiliation: Optics Department, Applied Optics Complutense Group, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Madrid, Spain. jlvilas@ucm.es
authors.forename: Jose Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Vilas
authors.forename: Luis Miguel
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Sanchez-Brea
authors.forename: Eusebio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bernabeu