Spin-orbit photonic technologies are a powerful resource to structure light in different degrees of freedom, allowing for simultaneous control of the polarization and spatial component of the beam. A key example is the q-plate, a liquid-crystal device enabling fast and accurate polarization-conditioned beam shaping. Here, we report on recent advances in the field, specifically, the observation of spin-orbit coupling in crystallized ascorbic acid, the generalization of q-plates to dual-q-plates, and a new class of liquid-crystal devices working as photonic quantum simulators.
In recent years, the on-demand generation of structured polychromatic fields has introduced the possibility of creating more complicated polarization states. However, the study of the curves traced by the polychromatic electric field has been limited to the paraxial case, leading to Lissajous-like curves. In contrast, the new zoo of the 3-dimensional polarization curves remain almost unexplored. In this work, we propose the analysis of the 3-dimensional polarization curves generated by non-paraxial polychromatic beams. The non-paraxial regime is achieved through vector diffraction by an aplanatic lens.
Helical modes of light, that is those optical spatial modes carrying a definite amount of orbital angular momentum, are proving a crucial resource in modern photonics. In all applications that rely on these modes and on their combination, a fundamental role is played by the scheme that is used to characterise the complex structure of the light beam. Here we describe a technique that applies the concept of digital holography to the study of the orbital angular momentum content of structured light [1]. In particular, the interference pattern formed by the light beam under investigation and a reference field is analysed digitally, and the complete electric field is obtained. A decomposition in term of helical modes allows one to get the orbital angular momentum spectrum of the beam in a few steps, with the possibility of retrieving also the complex radial profile associated with each mode. Requiring a simple setup and a limited number of measurements, this technique could provide a convenient strategy for the characterisation of structured light beams.
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