提出了一种通过软件计算输出椭圆偏振光矢的长短轴来测量1/4波片相位延迟量的新方法, 其测量光路简单易行, 仅由光源、起偏器、待测1/4波片、检偏器和光功率计组成, 测量结果通过Mathcad进行分析运算, 得到波片的相位延迟量。文中详细论证了新方法的原理过程, 给出了应用实例与误差分析, 结果表明: 新方法的绝对测量误差小于0.26°。该方法的主要优点是光学器件少, 操作简单, 易于实现, 引入误差小, 测量精度高。

A new method for retardation measurement of a quarter-wave plate was proposed. It was realized by calculating the long and short axes' values of the output elliptical polarized light based on computer simulations. The optical measuring system was simply composed of a laser, a polarizer, the quarter-wave plate to be measured, an analyzer and an optical detector. The real retardation can be obtained by a data processing with Mathcad. The principle of this new method was theoretically analyzed and an application example and its error analysis were demonstrated in this paper. The experiment results show that the absolute error is less than 0.26°. Therefore the main advantages of the method are a few optical devices required, very easy to run and a big improvement in measuring accuracy.