Low polarization microscope objectives

Abstract

Low polarization, high numerical aperture microscope objectives ideal for polarization sensitive applications are designed, fabricated, and measured. A microscope objective is designed to meet the application requirements using Code V. Performance of typical AR coatings is examined and determined to be insufficient to meet the polarization performance desired. Custom AR coatings are optimized using an in house polarization ray tracing program to reduce the objectives diattenuation. The resulting microscope objectives perform about 5 times better than our low polarization Nikon objectives.