Digital sorting of Hermite-Gauss beams: mode spectra and topological charge of a perturbed Laguerre-Gauss beam

Abstract

We developed and implemented an intensity moments technique for measuring amplitude and initial phase spectra, the topological charge (TC) and orbital angular momentum (OAM) of the Laguerre-Gauss (LG) beams decomposed into the basis of Hermite-Gaussian (HG) modes. A rigorous theoretical justification is given for measuring the TC of unperturbed LG beams with different values of radial and azimuthal numbers by means of an astigmatic transformation on a cylindrical lens. We have shown that the measured amplitude and phase spectra of the HG modes make it possible to find the orbital OAM and TC, as well as digitally sorting the HG modes and then restoring the initial singular beam.

Keywords

• diffraction optics
• orbital angular momentum
• intensity moments technique