A broadband optical retardation device, such as may be used for polarisation encoding of display information or in diffractive optical systems, includes a patterned uniform half wave plate retarder in combination with a non-patterned uniform quarter wave plate retarder having an optic axis oriented at 90° to the xz plane. The patterned retarder consists of alternating first and second regions having first and second optic axes at different orientations to a reference axis, for example at +22.5° and −22.5° to the xz plane. Considering light of wavelength &lgr;° incident on the retarder and linearly polarised in the xy plane, such light is differently polarised by the regions, and the light output by the device includes regions in which the light is right circularly polarised and regions in which the light is left circularly polarised. In the case of incident light of wavelengths greater or less than &lgr;°, the output light becomes progressively more linearly polarised as the wavelengths departs to a greater extent from the ideal value, but not to the same extent as would be the case if the device consisted simply of a patterned single layer acting as a quarter plate retarder.