Vol. 33, Issue 2-3, pp. 337-343 (2003)

Abstract

The practical problem of the lack of a quarter-wave plate for an arbitrary wavelength has been solved in our earlier work. The possibility of substituting this plate with a combination of two (or more) retardation plates with phase shift different from 90° has been shown. However, there are some special cases in which another wave plate commonly used in polarization optics is needed, i.e., a half-wave plate. In the present paper some formulae have been derived for several of the most important applications of these retardation plates in measuring setup.