The measuring system of two-dimensional birefringence distribution with a polarization modulator and a rotating analyzer using
a rotating analyzer method is presented. The system simply consists of a laser diode, two polarizers, two quarter wave plates
and a CCD camera. Thanks to an imaging system, the mechanism to scan a sample is unnecessary and two-dimensional measurement
is possible and easy. The birefringence of retardation and orientation of the optic axis can be determined by the azimuth
angle of an elliptically polarized light passing through a sample. The azimuth angle is obtained by applying the phase shifting
algorithm to measure the polarization properties; by improving the calculation algorithm, wide range measurement is accomplished.
The measurement procedure and a number of results are described.
Keywords birefringence - measurement system - optic axis - retardation