Design Principles for Quarter-Wave Retarders that Employ Total Internal Reflection and Light Interference in a Single-Layer Coating

Explicit equations are derived for the design of quarter-wave retarders (qwr) that exploit total internal reflection (tir) and interference of light in a transparent thin-film coating at the base of a prism. the optimal refractive index and normalized thickness of qwr coatings on glass and zns prisms are determined as functions of the internal angle of incidence from 45° to 75°. an achromatic retarder that uses tir by a si3n4-coated nbk10- schott glass prism is also presented that achieves exact qwr at two wavelengths (409 and 500 nm) and exhibits a retardation error of < 1.5° for wavelengths 375 ≤ λ ≤ 550 nm in the near-uv and the violet-blue-green part of the visible spectrum.