Abstract

Polarization is a very fundamental property of light. Compared to other parameters used to characterize light, polarization is very difficult to measure accurately. Existing techniques allow precise determination of the azimuth of the polarization ellipse and of the retardation of very special passive components¹ or that induced in active components. However, it is still a challenge to measure precisely the absolute retardation of common birefiringent elements or the ellipticity of an arbitrary beam. New measurement techniques quote a retardation sensitivity of 〜λ/10⁵.³ Polarization is a very fundamental property of light. Compared to other parameters used to characterize light, polarization is very difficult to measure accurately. Existing techniques allow precise determination of the azimuth of the polarization ellipse and of the retardation of very special passive components¹ or that induced in active components. However, it is still a challenge to measure precisely the absolute retardation of common birefiringent elements or the ellipticity of an arbitrary beam. New measurement techniques quote a retardation sensitivity of 〜λ/10⁵.³ However, retardation offsets and other hampering factors reduce their absolute precision to a significantly lower value.

© 2002 Optical Society of America