5.1: Characterization of Inhomogeneous Retarders

This paper presents various approaches for measurement and evaluation of optical characteristics of compound retarder sheets and discusses their features and limitations. We introduce and compare two ways of modeling the actual multilayer structure with an inclined uniaxial indicatrix and an inhomogeneous biaxial layer plus negative c‐plate, and the performance of these models is analyzed for the principle plane of light incidence and for arbitrary directions of light propagation.