Controlling the Abrupt Autofocusing of Circular Airy Vortex Beam via Uniaxial Crystal

Abstract

The propagation of many kinds of structured light beams in uniaxial crystal has been investigated. However, the investigation of the evolution of these structured light beams after the uniaxial crystal is lacking. In this paper, an evolution formula of a light beam after passing through a uniaxial crystal is derived. Based on the formula, controlling the autofocusing of a circular Airy vortex beam (CAVB) via a uniaxial crystal is studied. It is found that a uniaxial crystal can prolong the focal length of the autofocusing. By changing the crystal length, the relative weight of the left- and right-hand circular polarization components and the relative value between the orbital and spin angular momentum densities of the beam’s focal plane can be adjusted flexibly. In addition, other optical elements can be inserted between the crystal and the focus to further adjust the focal plane field distribution. The influences of inserting x- and y-polarization polarizers on the intensity distribution are calculated as examples.

Keywords

• circular Airy vortex beam
• uniaxial crystal
• orbital angular momentum