Related papers: Geometric descriptions for the polarization for no…
The Stokes-parameter operators and the associated Poincare sphere, which describe the quantum-optical polarization properties of light, are defined and their basic properties are reviewed. The general features of the Stokes operators are…
From an appropriate parameterization of the three-dimensional (3D) coherency matrix R, that characterizes the second-order, classical states of polarization, the coherency matrices are classified and interpreted in terms of incoherent…
The widely-used Jones and Mueller differential polarization calculi allow non-depolarizing deterministic polarization interactions, known to be elements of the $SO^+(1,3)$ Lorentz group, to be described in an efficient way. In this Letter,…
The superposition of complex optical fields in three-dimension (3D) is the basis of several non-trivial wave phenomena. Significant among them are the non-uniform polarization distribution and their topological character, leading to the…
Polarization of light is harnessed in an abundance of classical and quantum applications. Characterizing polarization in a classical sense is done resoundingly successfully using the Stokes parameters, and numerous proposals offer new…
The polarization process when polarizers act on an optical field is studied. We give examples for two kinds of polarizers. The first kind presents an anisotropic absorption - as in a polaroid film - and the second one is based on total…
The connection between Poincar\'e spheres for polariz-ation and Gaussian beams is explored, focusing on the interpretation of elliptic polarization in terms of the isotropic 2-dimensional harmonic oscillator in Hamiltonian mechanics, its…
We present a study of geometric phases in classical wave and polarisation optics using the basic mathematical framework of quantum mechanics. Important physical situations taken from scalar wave optics, pure polarisation optics, and the…
We investigate theoretical properties of beams of light with non-uniform polarization patterns. Specifically, we determine all possible configurations of cylindrically polarized modes (CPMs) of the electro-magnetic field, calculate their…
Structured light, when strongly focused, generates highly confined vectorial electromagnetic field distributions which may feature a polarization component along the optical axis. Manipulating and detecting such 3D light fields is…
Motivated by a recent finding that Fresnel's phenomenological description of the optical activity in the chiral medium is not self-consistent, we conduct a thorough investigation into the nature of the polarization of a plane light wave. We…
Tightly focused light beams can exhibit electric fields spinning around any axis including the one transverse to the beams' propagation direction. At certain focal positions, the corresponding local polarization ellipse can degenerate into…
Here we outline a description of paraxial light propagation from a modal perspective. By decomposing the initial transverse field into a spatial basis whose elements have known and analytical propagation characteristics, we are able to…
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a polarization--based steganographic scheme using partially polarized vector beams. In our approach, the spatially dependent polarization structure of the optical field serves as the carrier through…
In nonparaxial, monochromatic light the electric and magnetic fields generally have different energy densities, different singularities and different polarisation structures. A topological picture of the electric field or magnetic field in…
Longitudinal electromagnetic fields generally become comparable with the usually dominant transverse components in strongly-focussed, non-paraxial beams. For optical vortex modes it is highlighted here how their angular momentum properties…
Polarization speckle is a fine granular light pattern having spatially varying random polarization profile. We generate these speckle patterns by using the scattering of Poincar\'e beams, a special class of vector vortex beams, through a…
We explore the morphological properties of symmetric Airy beams in the paraxial and nonparaxial regimes. We consider a 2D electromagnetic realization with a single transverse component of the electric field, and in the nonparaxial regime,…
In this paper we show that it is possible to structure the longitudinal polarization component of light. We illustrate our approach by demonstrating linked and knotted longitudinal vortex lines acquired upon non-paraxially propagating a…
Even when neglecting diffraction effects, the well-known equations of geometrical optics (GO) are not entirely accurate. Traditional GO treats wave rays as classical particles, which are completely described by their coordinates and…