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Updated: May 26, 2026

Infrared Degenerate Four-wave Mixing with Upconversion Detection for Quantitative Gas Sensing
Published on: March 22, 2019
Comparison of quarter-wave retarders over finite spectral and angular bandwidths for infrared polarimetric-imaging
Samuel L Wadsworth1, Glenn D Boreman
1CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA. samuel.l.wadsworth@saic.com
Abstract:
We compare three technological approaches for quarter-wave retarders within the context of polarimetric-imaging applications in the long-wave infrared (LWIR) spectrum. Performance of a commercial cadmium sulfide (CdS) crystalline waveplate, a multilayer meanderline structure, and a silicon (Si) form-birefringent retarder are evaluated under conditions of 8-12 μm broadband radiation emerging from an F/1 focusing objective. Metrics used for this comparison are the spectrally dependent axial ratio, retardance, and polarization-averaged power transmittance, which are averaged over the angular range of interest. These parameters correspond to the characteristics that would be observed at the focal-plane array (FPA) detector of an LWIR imaging polarimeter.
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