EPS1000: Up to 80 Mrad/s speed; improved scrambling

New version EPS1000-XXM (20 < XX ≤ 80) with 5 waveplates reaches calibrated scrambling speeds up to 80 Mrad/s. Recommended for the majority of applications, in particular coherent optical receiver testing.

A quarterwave plate (QWP) has time-variable orientation. When also its retardation is made time-variable then one obtains a general linear retarder (RET). This improves scrambling randomness. Already 2 RETs scramble very well. QWP / RET scrambling speed is now at least 3 Mrad/s.

EPS1000-50M with 3 waveplates can be operated as a fast polarization-independent depolarizer at specified wavelength(s). There is either QWP4 or QWP2. Various depolarization intervals are available, by default from 960 ns down to 240 ns. Depending on depolarization interval, worst-case degree-of-polarization is typically about 0.05. See results and theory.

Scrambling speeds EPS1000-20M
EPS1000-50M
EPS1000-XXM
    either QWP4
XX = 40, 60, 80
    or QWP2
 
QWP0 / RET0 2 Mrad/s -------------- --------------
QWP1 / RET1 2 Mrad/s -------------- 3 Mrad/s
QWP2 / RET2 2 Mrad/s (10 Mrad/s) 3 Mrad/s
HWP 20 Mrad/s 50 Mrad/s XX Mrad/s
QWP3 / RET3 2 Mrad/s 10 Mrad/s 3 Mrad/s
QWP4 / RET4 2 Mrad/s (10 Mrad/s) 3 Mrad/s
QWP5 / RET5 2 Mrad/s -------------- --------------