Structuring total angular momentum of light along the propagation direction with polarization-controlled meta-optics.

ABSTRACT: Recent advances in wavefront shaping have enabled complex classes of Structured Light which carry spin and orbital angular momentum, offering new tools for light-matter interaction, communications, and imaging. Controlling both components of angular momentum along the propagation direction can potentially extend such applications to 3D. However, beams of this kind have previously been realized using bench-top setups, requiring multiple interaction with light of a fixed input polarization, thus impeding their widespread applications. Here, we introduce two classes of metasurfaces that lift these constraints, namely: i) polarization-switchable plates that couple any pair of orthogonal polarizations to two vortices in which the magnitude and/or sense of vorticity vary locally with propagation

SUBMITTER: Dorrah AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8556329 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature