Wave Retarders

We have already discussed how to convert one polarization state into another if only briefly. In this section we review commonly used optical components that convert polarization states.

Remember the activity that we did earlier Birefringence in pictures:

The image above is the material geometry we'll be dealing with in the following example

Follow the steps below to further explore birefringence, but now for the case of retarders. Then answer the questions for this activity:

1. Go to EMANIM website
2. Click the checkbox to 'turn on' Wave 2
3. Click the checkbox to 'turn on' Wave 1 + Wave 2
4. Increase the amplitude of Wave 2 to 5 (this now matches the amplitude of Wave 1)
5. Scroll down and click the checkbox to 'turn off' Components
6. Change the wavelength Wave 1 and Wave 2 to BOTH be 5 i.e., \[Lambda]=5
7. Click the checkbox to 'turn on' a Material -- note that an orange parallelepiped appears to indicate the material volume
8. Change the length of the material to 7
9. Change the index of refraction for Wave 2 to 1.35