Extraction of inherent polarization modes from a single light beam
Abstract
Superposition of two independent orthogonally polarized beams is a conventional principle of creating a new light beam. Here, we intend to achieve the inverse process, namely, extracting inherent polarization modes from a single light beam. However, inherent polarization modes within a light beam are always entangled so that a stable polarization is maintained during propagation in free space. To overcome this limitation, we report an approach that breaks the modulation symmetry of a light beam, thereby disentangling the inherent polarization modes. Using polarization mode competition along with an optical pen, polarization modes are extracted at will in the focal region of an objective lens. This work demonstrates polarization mode extraction from a light beam, which will not only provide an entirely new principle of polarization modulation but also pave the way for multidimensional manipulation of light fields, thereby facilitating extensive developments in optics.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2102.11620,
title = {Extraction of inherent polarization modes from a single light beam},
author = {Xiaoyu Weng and Yu Miao and Qingli Zhang and Guanxue Wang and Yue Li and Xiumin Gao and Songlin Zhuang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.11620},
year = {2021}
}