A study of the thickness sensitivity of the anisotropic-slab LP to CP by using the inverse circular polarization ratio

In this paper, the inverse circular polarization ratio is used to investigate the thickness sensitivity of the anisotropic slab linearly polarized (LP) to circularly polarized (CP) polarizer. For the slab polarizer, the perfect CP cannot be achieved under an inaccurate slab thickness. We define a thickness sensitivity based on a specified axial ratio, e.g., 3 dB. Usually only one sense is interested for a particular application, e.g., RHCP in GPS reception. When the inverse circular polarization ratio is used, the RH wave will reside completely within the unit circle and the derivation becomes simpler. One example of the biaxial slab is studied. Our results show that a tilt angle of 45/spl deg/ of the initial LP wave gives the maximum thickness sensitivity.