English

Efficient generation and sorting of orbital angular momentum eigenmodes of light by thermally tuned q-plates

Optics 2015-05-13 v1

Abstract

We present methods for generating and for sorting specific orbital angular momentum (OAM) eigenmodes of a light beam with high efficiency, using a liquid crystal birefringent plate with unit topological charge, known as \qo{q-plate}. The generation efficiency has been optimized by tuning the optical retardation of the q-plate with temperature. The measured OAM m=±2m=\pm2 eigenmodes generation efficiency from an input TEM00_{00} beam was of 97%. Mode sorting of the two input OAM m=±2m=\pm2 eigenmodes was achieved with an efficiency of 81% and an extinction-ratio (or cross-talk) larger than 4.5:1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.0562,
  title  = {Efficient generation and sorting of orbital angular momentum eigenmodes of light by thermally tuned q-plates},
  author = {Ebrahim Karimi and Bruno Piccirillo and Eleonora Nagali and Lorenzo Marrucci and Enrico Santamato},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.0562},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 Figures and 1 table. Submitted