Quartz Birefringent Filter Plates

Quartz Birefringent Filter Plates

The birefringent filter plate is a linear retarder made of a-cut (or 90o cut with the optical axis in the plate face) crystalline quartz and used intracavity to selectively tune a desired wavelength and create reflection losses at other wavelengths. In use, it is placed at Brewster’s angle, and then rotated about the axis perpendicular to the surface to achieve a full wave retardation at the wavelength of interest. The selected wavelength contains only a p-polarization component, and thus experience no reflection loss. Other wavelengths undergo a different retardation, and have some amount of s-polarization, leading to reflection losses.

A birefringent filter used in a short-pulse laser cavity can be a single quartz plate. A birefringent filter for a narrow linewidth CW laser can contain a stack of 2–4 quartz  plates, each plate being half the thickness of the previous one. The thickest plate sets the bandwidth and the thinnest the free spectral range (FSR).

Reference:

Birefringent filter for laser tuning: theory and design

The birefringent filter plates in this page have a thickness of multiples of T (T=0.5mm) with the diameter of 1" or 0.5".  More quartz plates/blocks with various apertures, thicknesses and coatings are available under the general "Quartz Crystals".


aperture
thickness
Model Name aperture thickness Price Availability Action
BIR0010 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 1.0mm Dia 0.5" 1.0 mm USD$249.00
BIR0015 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 1.5mm Dia 0.5" 1.5 mm USD$249.00
BIR0020 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 2.0mm Dia 0.5" 2.0 mm USD$249.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0025 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 2.5mm Dia 0.5" 2.5 mm USD$249.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0030 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 3.0mm Dia 0.5" 3.0 mm USD$249.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0040 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 4.0mm Dia 0.5" 4.0 mm USD$249.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0050 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 5.0mm Dia 0.5" 5.0 mm USD$249.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0060 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 6.0mm Dia 0.5" 6.0 mm USD$269.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0080 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 8.0mm Dia 0.5" 8.0 mm USD$269.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0100 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 10.0mm Dia 0.5" 10.0 mm USD$289.00 Out Of Stock
BIR0050-AR1064 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 0.5", Thickness 5.0mm, AR coated@1064nm Dia 0.5" 5.0 mm USD$369.00 Out Of Stock
BIR1005 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 1", Thickness 0.5mm Dia 1" 0.5 mm USD$269.00
BIR1010 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 1", Thickness 1.0mm Dia 1" 1.0 mm USD$269.00
BIR1010-BBAR400/700 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 1", Thickness 1.0mm, Broadband AR@400-700nm Dia 1" 1.0 mm USD$399.00
BIR1015 Quartz birefringent filter plate, Dia 1", Thickness 1.5mm Dia 1" 1.5 mm USD$269.00
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Basic Properties of Quartz Crystal:
 

Transparency Range: 200 - 2300 nm

material-cq.GIF (10904 bytes)

Transmission Curve

Crystal Symmetry: Hexagonal, P3121
Lattice Constants: a=b=4.9133A, c=5.4053A
Density:  2.65 g/cm3
Thermo-Optic Coefficients:
dno/dT= -0.52 x 10-6 /oC @ 530 nm
dne/dT= -0.63 x 10-6/oC  @ 530 nm
Damage Threshold ( 10ns, 10Hz)
~ 1GW/cm2 at 1064 nm
~ 500 MW/cm2 at 532 nm
Optical Homogeneity: Δn < 10-6/cm
Mohs Hardness:  7
Thermal Expansion Coefficients:   αa = 14 x 10-6/K
  αc = 7.6 x 10-6/K
Linear Absorption Coefficients: α<0.01cm-1 from 300 to 2300 nm

Sellmeier Equations: (λ in µm) :
no2=2.3573-0.01170λ2+0.01054/λ2+1.3414x10-44-4.4537x10-76+5.9236x10-88
ne2=2.3849-0.01259λ2+0.01079/λ2+1.6518x10-44-1.9474x10-66+9.3648x10-88

 Wavelength(nm) no ne Birefringence
(Δn=ne-no)
Walk-off Angle
 at 45°
1064 1.5341 1.5428 0.00872 -0.325°
800 1.5384 1.5473 0.00891 -0.331°
632.8 1.5427 1.5517 0.00906 -0.336°
532 1.5469 1.5561 0.00920 -0.340°
400 1.5577 1.5673 0.00957 -0.351°
355 1.5646 1.5744 0.00982 -0.358°
266 1.5916 1.6024 0.01077 -0.386°

 

 

Specifications:
 

Cut Orientation: a-cut +/-5 arc min with the optical axis (c-axis) in the plane surface
Diameter Tolerance: +0, -0.25 mm
Thickness Tolerance: +/-0.05 mm for T=<5mm, +/-0.1 mm for T>5mm 
Surface Quality: 10/5 Scratch and Dig
Parallelism: < 3 arc sec
Perpendicularity: <10 arc min
Transmission Wavefront Distortion: <λ/8 @632.8 nm

AR-coating:

R<0.2% at the central wavelength is available upon request

 


Cut orientation (a-cut):