Photoelastic tomography for birefringence determination in optical microelements

In the paper we have analyzed the optical system for 3D measurement of birefringence of micro-optical elements. For small objects, where the fine birefringence sampling in the measurement is necessary, the diffraction of light can not be neglected. Thus the standard tomographic reconstruction algorithm gives considerable errors. In the paper we have analyzed such errors through simulation of reconstruction of object having variable stepindex and continuous distribution of birefringence.