Experimental determination of Poincaré beam coordinates on a Hybrid order Poincaré sphere

Abstract

Hybrid order Poincaré sphere (HyOPS) is used to represent Poincaré beams as points on it. The latitude and longitude of the HyOPS represent the size of the Stokes vortex ring and Pancharatnam phase of the Poincaré beam respectively. Although the HyOPS was introduced in 2015, there is no method that allows one to unambiguously determine the coordinates of Poincaré beams on this sphere. In this article, by subjecting the Poincaré beams to angular momentum and polarization transformations using conventional phase and polarizing elements respectively, we demonstrate an experimental method to determine the coordinates of the Poincaré beams on the HyOPS. This method may enable one to study the chirality and circular dichroism in materials and to enable us to segregate them, where both phenomena occur simultaneously.