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In this letter, we propose a simple configuration that is capable of rotating a linear polarization state of light by a certain angle for a wide range of wavelengths. The device consists of three liquid-crystal cells: two homogeneous cells and one twisted nematic (TN) cell. It is well known that a thick TN cell can rotate the linear polarization state of light by following the twisted structure. However, for a thin TN cell, achromatic polarization rotation is not possible. By the use of the Poincaré sphere model of the TN structure, we demonstrate that if one thin homogeneous cell is placed before and another one is placed after a thin TN structure, then a linear polarization state can be transformed close to the eigenmodes of TN. Therefore, this structure can be used to achieve the achromatic polarization rotation. This letter provides a detailed discussion of the theoretical analysis and a demonstration of the achromatic linear polarization rotator by the use of a 1.9 μm TN cell for the wavelength range 450–700 nm.
Zhuang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.