Simple method for simultaneous determination of the phase retardation and fast axis of a wave plate

A simple method for simultaneous determination of the phase retardation and fast axis of a wave plate is presented. In this method, double light path compare system is adopted to achieve better accuracy. In the main optical path, laser beam passes successively through a polarizer, a wave plate to be measured, an analyzer, and then is incident on a detector. In the reference optical path, another detector is used to monitor the fluctuation of the light source. With rotation of the wave plate, the maximum and minimum output light intensity, rotation angle of the wave plate are detected in the main light path; corresponding light intensity are simultaneously detected in the reference light path. Based on the light intensity and the rotation angle, the phase retardation and fast axis of the wave plate can be determined simultaneously. The main advantage of this method is its simplicity of apparatus, easy operation, low cost, and high accuracy. We believe that the method reported in this paper should be a useful approach to measure a wave plate without requiring any complex and expensive components.