Broadband composite polarization rotator

TL;DR

This paper introduces a broadband optical polarization rotator using a sequence of half-wave plates, inspired by quantum control techniques, achieving robust polarization rotation over a wide wavelength range.

Contribution

It presents a novel design for a broadband polarization rotator based on composite pulse analogy, with derived rotation angles ensuring robustness against parameter variations.

Findings

Achieves wideband polarization rotation with high robustness.

Design based on composite pulse analogy from quantum physics.

Provides explicit solutions for half-wave plate angles.

Abstract

We describe a broadband optical device that is capable of rotating the polarization plane of a linearly polarized light at any desired angle over a wide range of wavelengths. The device is composed of a sequence of half-wave plates rotated at specific angles with respect to their fast-polarization axes. This design draws on an analogy with composite pulses, which is a well-known control technique from quantum physics. We derive the solutions for the rotation angles of the single half-wave plates depending on the desired polarization rotation angle. We show that the broadband polarization rotator is robust against variations of the parameters of both the crystal and the light field.