Generating controllable Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes through intracavity spin-orbital angular momentum conversion of light
Abstract
The rapid developments in orbital-angular-momentum-carrying Laguerre-Gaussian (LG0 l) modes in recent years have facilitated progresses in optical communication, micromanipulation and quantum information. However, it is still challenging to efficiently generate bright, pure and selectable LG0 l laser modes in compact devices. Here, we demonstrate a low-threshold solid-state laser that can directly output selected high-purity LG0 l modes with high efficiency and controllability. Spin-orbital angular momentum conversion of light is used to reversibly convert the transverse modes inside cavity and determine the output mode index. The generated LG0 1 and LG0 2 laser modes have purities of ~97% and ~93% and slope efficiencies of ~11% and ~5.1%, respectively. Moreover, our cavity design can be easily extended to produce higher-order Laguerre-Gaussian modes and cylindrical vector beams. Such compact laser configuration features flexible control, low threshold, and robustness, making it a practical tool for applications in super-resolution imaging, high-precision interferometer and quantum correlations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1807.09963,
title = {Generating controllable Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes through intracavity spin-orbital angular momentum conversion of light},
author = {Dunzhao Wei and Yue Cheng and Rui Ni and Yong Zhang and Xiaopeng Hu and Shining Zhu and Min Xiao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.09963},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
22 pages, 13 figures