Abstract
Mueller matrix ellipsometry has been used to precisely characterize quartz waveplates for demanding applications in the semiconductor industry and high precision polarimetry. We have found this experimental technique to be beneficial to use because it enables us to obtain absolute and precise measurement of retardation in a wide spectral range, waveplate orientation, and compound waveplate adjustment. In this paper, the necessity of including the optical activity in the Mueller matrix model and data treatment is demonstrated. Particularly, the optical activity of the quartz influences the adjustment of misalignment between the perpendicularly oriented waveplates of the compound biplate. We demonstrate that omitting the optical activity from the model leads to inaccurate values of the misalignment. In addition, the depolarization effects caused by a finite monochromator bandwidth is included in the model. Incorporation of the optical activity to the Mueller matrix model has required a development of rigorous theory based on appropriate constitutive equations. The generalized Yeh's matrix algebra to bianisotropic media has been used for the calculation of the eigenmodes propagation in chiral materials with reduced symmetry. Based on the applied method, the authors have proposed approximated analytical form of the Mueller matrix representing optically active waveplate and biplate and provided discussion on the analytical and numerical limits of the method.
Highlights
Waveplates are polarization optical components with a broad field of applicability across the semiconductor industry [1,2], quality inspection in manufacturing processes [3,4], THz spectroscopy [5,6], analytical chemistry [7,8,9] and polarimetry [10,11,12,13]
In Ref. [29] we have shown the presence of the nonzero circular birefringence related to optical activity (OA) using the Lu-Chipman decomposition [35] of the quartz waveplates experimental data
We exclusively measure the waveplates aligned with the optical axis perpendicular to the propagation direction and we demonstrate, that the effect of the OA can not be neglected to process the experimental data correctly
Summary
Waveplates are polarization optical components with a broad field of applicability across the semiconductor industry [1,2], quality inspection in manufacturing processes [3,4], THz spectroscopy [5,6], analytical chemistry [7,8,9] and polarimetry [10,11,12,13]. Waveplates of higher order exhibit high chromatic dispersion, broadly used zero-order waveplate would be undesirably thin To overcome this inconvenience, the waveplates are composed by two thicker higher order plates with crossed optical axes [28], so called biplates. The waveplates are composed by two thicker higher order plates with crossed optical axes [28], so called biplates This method may be insufficient nowadays, as the users demands on the waveplates precision fabrication raises significantly. That the OA effect is separable and independent of other waveplate (biplates) characteristics like plates misalignment All those parameters are obtained with very high numerical precision and great fit stability. The paper is structured as follows: In Sec. 2, the rigorous Mueller matrix models for optically active single waveplates and waveplate biplates are derived. In Appendix D., we offer an algebraic analysis on the manifestation difference between the misalignment and the OA in the proposed Mueller matrices
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