Optimal achromatic wave retarders using two birefringent wave plates

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. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America