Lianhua JIN, Kuniharu TAKIZAWA, Yukitoshi OTANI¹ and Norihiro UMEDA¹

Department of Materials and Life Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Seikei University, 3-3-1 Kichijoji-Kitamachi, Musashino, Tokyo 180-8633, Japan
¹Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16 Nakamachi, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan

(Received March 28, 2005; Accepted May 16, 2005)

The retardation of two quarter-wave plates designed for a particular wavelength decreases or increases in accordance with the wavelength of input light beam. Compensating the shifted retardation at each measurement wavelength allows us to get Mueller matrices of samples at different wavelengths without exchanging the plates. Initial orientation errors of two plates and an analyzer, which remain constant through all wavelengths, are also taken into consideration. The availability and accuracy of this polarimeter is assessed by measurement of a quarter-wave plate designed for 632.8 nm wavelength. The results show that this system is very attractive to measure optical properties and dispersion in samples.

Key words: Mueller matrix, polarimeter, quarter-wave plate, birefringence, dispersion