beamsplitting methods

JeffreyMurray · Post by **JeffreyMurray** » Sun May 02, 2004 2:57 pm

A couple of the mirrors moved during the 5 minute exposure, the plate moved too...

Greg G · Post by **Greg G** » Mon May 03, 2004 5:12 pm

Rather than dissect Nintendo displays, you can also buy inexpensive
( you get what you pay for ) waveplates from 3M in big sheets ( 19" x 25" ) 3M is usually very good about samples so you might be able to talk them ( or their local sales rep ) out of a few square inches of their various materials to evaluate for your products.

http://www.3m.com/market/omc/om_html/te ... ders.jhtml

If you attend events like OSA or SPIE conferences where there is a decent trade show, Karl Lambrecht used to hand out a 2" x 2" sample kit of their plastic waveplates.

Caveats: They're both cheap plastic waveplates and not precision optical components. ( though the KL stuff is pretty good ) You'll probably see interference effects and phase corruption of your wavefront.

They also bleach when used directly with bright lasers and you can burn a hole in them with really bright lasers. Usually not much of an issue with quartz waveplates.