What wave plate would you use in ultrashort applications?
When you’re using wave plates with ultrashort pulses, it’s important to use zero-order wave plates because of their wide retardance bandwidths. For example, a zero-order wave plate provides a half-wave retardance to within 1% over a ±7-nm bandwidth. A 100-fs pulse centered at 800 nm has a bandwidth of about 9 nm.
