Arbitrary optical wavefront shaping via spin-to-orbit coupling

Converting spin angular momentum to orbital angular momentum has been shown to be a practical and efficient method for generating optical beams carrying orbital angular momentum and possessing a space-varying polarized field. Here, we present novel liquid crystal devices for tailoring the wavefront...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2016-08
Main Authors: Larocque, Hugo, Gagnon-Bischoff, Jérémie, Bouchard, Frédéric, Fickler, Robert, Upham, Jeremy, Boyd, Robert W, Karimi, Ebrahim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Angular momentum
Beams (radiation)
Gaussian beams (optics)
Liquid crystals
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Converting spin angular momentum to orbital angular momentum has been shown to be a practical and efficient method for generating optical beams carrying orbital angular momentum and possessing a space-varying polarized field. Here, we present novel liquid crystal devices for tailoring the wavefront of optical beams through the Pancharatnam-Berry phase concept. We demonstrate the versatility of these devices by generating an extensive range of optical beams such as beams carrying \(\pm200\) units of orbital angular momentum along with Bessel, Airy and Ince-Gauss beams. We characterize both the phase and the polarization properties of the generated beams, confirming our devices' performance.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1608.06603