High-efficiency and flexible generation of vector vortex optical fields by a reflective phase-only spatial light modulator

Abstract

The scheme for generating vector optical fields should have not only high efficiency but also flexibility for satisfying the requirements of various applications. However, in general, high efficiency and flexibility are not compatible. Here we present and experimentally demonstrate a solution to directly, flexibly, and efficiently generate vector vortex optical fields (VVOFs) with a reflective phase-only liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM) based on optical birefringence of liquid crystal molecules. To generate the VVOFs, this approach needs in principle only a half-wave plate, an LC-SLM, and a quarter-wave plate. This approach has some advantages, including a simple experimental setup, good flexibility, and high efficiency, making the approach very promising in some applications when higher power is need. This approach has a generation efficiency of 44.0%, which is much higher than the 1.1% of the common path interferometric approach.

Phase Singularities to Polarization Singularities

“…Commercially available spatial light modulators (SLMs) can also be used to generate polarization singularities. As SLMs respond to only one linear polarization, this fact can be used to tailor the phase of the beam [107,[489][490][491][492][493][494]. Simultaneous generation of multiple vector beams on a single SLM is reported in [495].…”

Generation of V-point polarization singularity using single phase encoding with a spatial light modulator

“…Previous works have also demonstrated the generation of vector beams using single SLM 5 , 16 . However, most of the papers use two phase patterns to modulate orthogonal components of the beam while using half of SLM’s display for each 32 .…”

Arbitrary spatially variant polarization by unitary transformations in a common path interferometer

“…The results show that the technique is robust and reliable for generating arbitrary polarization. It is well known that the total intensity at the output of the system in this type of technique is low compared to more efficient non interferometric methods [12,16,28]. Efficiency of 47% has been achieved by implementing a double common path interferometric system [29], whereas 10.2% was obtained by suitable calibration of the reflective SLM in an interferometric setup [30].…”

“…Other schemes for high efficiency generating vector beams consists in a single SLM followed by a quarter wave plate. This technique was employed to generate vector vortex fields confirmed by an interferometric setup [15]. Recently by using a rotated SLM and followed by a quarter wave plate we generated a cylindrically polarized perfect vortex.…”