Angewandte Naturwissenschaften und WirtschaftsingenieurwesenZeitschriftenartikel
Florian Flossmann, U. Schwarz, M. Maier
Propagation dynamics of optical vortices in Laguerre-Gaussian beams
Optics Communications, vol. 250, no. 4-6, pp. 218-230
DOI: 10.1016/j.optcom.2005.02.032
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We have calculated the propagation dynamics of an initial off-axis vortex with topological charge 1 in Laguerre–Gaussian background beams View the MathML source(LG10andLG70), which are examples of background beams with non-generic dislocation surfaces, on which the real and imaginary parts of the light field are zero. When initially a vortex with broad core (e.g., r-vortex) is embedded in the background beam, the dislocation surfaces are destroyed during propagation and two vortices with opposite charge are created per dislocation surface in planes perpendicular to the propagation direction. For a vortex with narrow core (e.g., point vortex) diffraction is important and leads to the birth of more than two vortices per dislocation surface. These results are also valid for other background beams with dislocation surfaces, e.g., Hermite–Gaussian and Ince–Gaussian beams. We investigated experimentally the spatial evolution of the intensity distribution of an initial off-axis vortex with narrow core and topological charge 1 in View the MathML sourceLG10andLG70 background beams. The experimental results are in good agreement with the calculated intensity distributions.
Angewandte Naturwissenschaften und WirtschaftsingenieurwesenZeitschriftenartikel
Florian Flossmann, U. Schwarz, M. Maier, M. Dennis
Polarization Singularities from Unfolding an Optical Vortex through a Birefringent Crystal
Physical Review Letters - moving physics forward, vol. 95, no. 1009
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.253901
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Optical vortices (nodal lines and phase singularities) are the generic singularities of scalar optics but are unstable in vector optics. We investigate experimentally and theoretically the unfolding of a uniformly polarized optical vortex beam on propagation through a birefringent crystal and characterize the output field in terms of polarization singularities (C lines and points of circular polarization; L surfaces and lines of linear polarization). The field is described both in the 2-dimensional transverse plane, and in three dimensions, where the third is abstract, representing an optical path length propagated through the crystal. Many phenomena of singular optics, such as topological charge conservation and singularity reconnections, occur naturally in the description.
Angewandte Naturwissenschaften und WirtschaftsingenieurwesenZeitschriftenartikel
Florian Flossmann, U. Schwarz, M. Maier, M. Dennis
Stokes parameters in the unfolding of an optical vortex through a birefringent crystal
Optics Express, vol. 14, no. 23, pp. 11402-11411
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Following our earlier work (F. Flossmann et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 253901 (2005)), we describe the fine polarization structure of a beam containing optical vortices propagating through a birefringent crystal, both experimentally and theoretically.We emphasize here the zero surfaces of the Stokes parameters in three-dimensional space, two transverse dimensions and the third corresponding to optical path length in the crystal. We find that the complicated network of polarization singularities reported earlier – lines of circular polarization (C lines) and surfaces of linear polarization (L surfaces) – can be understood naturally in terms of the zeros of the Stokes parameters.