Angular and radial mode analyzer for optical beams

We describe an approach to determining both the angular and the radial modal content of a scalar optical beam in terms of optical angular momentum modes. A modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer that incorporates a spatial rotator to determine the angular modes and an optical realization of the fracti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics letters 2011-12, Vol.36 (23), p.4683-4685
Main Authors: ABOURADDY, Ayman F, YARNALL, Timothy M, SALEH, Bahaa E. A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Exact sciences and technology
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy
Interference
Interferometers
Optical instruments, equipment and techniques
Optics
Physics
Wave optics
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Summary:We describe an approach to determining both the angular and the radial modal content of a scalar optical beam in terms of optical angular momentum modes. A modified Mach-Zehnder interferometer that incorporates a spatial rotator to determine the angular modes and an optical realization of the fractional Hankel transform (fHT) to determine the radial modes is analyzed. Varying the rotation angle and the order of the fHT produces a two-dimensional (2D) interferogram from which we extract the modal coefficients by simple 2D Fourier analysis.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/OL.36.004683