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Published December 2014 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Achromatic orbital angular momentum generator

Abstract

We describe a novel approach for generating light beams that carry orbital angular momentum (OAM) by means of total internal reflection in an isotropic medium. A continuous space-varying cylindrically symmetric reflector, in the form of two glued hollow axicons, is used to introduce a nonuniform rotation of polarization into a linearly polarized input beam. This device acts as a full spin-to-orbital angular momentum convertor. It functions by switching the helicity of the incoming beamʼs polarization, and by conservation of total angular momentum thereby generates a well-defined value of OAM. Our device is broadband, since the phase shift due to total internal reflection is nearly independent of wavelength. We verify the broad-band behaviour by measuring the conversion efficiency of the device for three different wavelengths corresponding to the RGB colours, red, green and blue. An average conversion efficiency of 95% for these three different wavelengths is observed. This device may find applications in imaging from micro- to astronomical systems where a white vortex beam is needed.

Additional Information

© 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Received 7 September 2014. Accepted 24 October 2014. Published 2 December 2014. The authors thank Joe Vornehm, Mark Martucci and Doug Hand for insightful discussions regarding the cone fabrication. The authors also acknowledge the support of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) program.

Attached Files

Published - Bouchard_2014_New_J._Phys._16_123006.pdf

Submitted - 1407.0065.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
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October 20, 2023