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.

Keywords

• light orbital angular momentum
• spin angular momentum
• total internal reflection
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