ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we very briefly describe two alternative methods of creating optical elements that produce effective retardances, form birefringent retarders and meanderline retarders. Form birefringence comes about from the anisotropic but ordered arrangement of isotropic materials where scale of the materials in at least one dimension is small relative to wavelength [1]. Theoretical description of form birefringence is accomplished using electromagnetic theory and solid state physics. Meanderline elements rely on geometric arrangements of metallic wires on transparent substrates, and design considerations are based on electromagnetic principles, similar to that for antennas in the radio frequency domain.
