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A Retardation Plate (or waveplate) resolves a polarized light beam into two orthogonal components, retards the phase of one component relative to the other, and then recombines the two to form a single beam with new polarization characteristics.
Generally, Retardation Plates are manufactured to provide half-wave or quarter-wave retardation. Half-wave Retardation Plates are often used to rotate the plane of a linearly polarized input beam. Quarter-wave Retardation Plates can be used to convert linearly polarized input light into circularly polarized, or vice versa.
ColorLink® now provides two types of custom Retardation Plates – Achromatic and Zero-Order. Each is designed for specific customer requirements and manufactured using our unique production assembly process. These affordably priced Retardation Plates utilize optical quality, birefringent polymer films and provide price and performance advantages over conventional crystalline waveplates.
Traditional crystalline waveplates have inherent limitations, including a relatively narrow operating wavelength range, limited field of view operation, undesirable thermal variations, and can be quite costly – especially for large aperture devices.
ColorLink Retardation Plates are manufactured using thin polymer films sandwiched between antireflection-coated glass substrates. This design, coupled with our cost effective production assembly process delivers a combination of broad operating wavelengths, wide field of view performance, improved stability across a wide thermal range, and large clear aperture devices at very affordable prices – especially in volume production.
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Achromatic Retardation Plates are available in sizes up to 100 mm, for a specified wavelength range within 400-2200 nm. More Details >>
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Zero-Order Retardation Plates can be made in larger sizes, up to 300 mm for a single wavelength within 400-2200 nm. More Details >>
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Compensators custom low-retardance compensators are also available. Call to speak with our engineers for additional information. More Details >> |
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