Cube polarizers can be designed for substantially equal optical path lengths of a reflected beam and a transmitted beam. For example, d11 of FIG. 1 can define a distance between a plane (face plane2) of the outer face (outer face2) of a second prism 16 and the first edge (first edge1) of the first prism, and d11 can be less than 400 micrometers. As another example, an optical path length differential between a transmitted beam and a reflected beam (|OPLT−OPLR|) can be