Light propagation in biaxial crystals

Abstract

We present a formalism able to predict the transformation of light beams passing through biaxial crystals. We use this formalism to show both theoretically and experimentally the transition from double refraction to conical refraction, which is found when light propagates along one of the optic axes of a biaxial crystal. Additionally, we demonstrate that the theory is applicable both to non-cylindrically symmetric and non-homogeneously polarized beams by predicting the transformation of input beams passing through a cascade of biaxial crystals.

References in corpus (8)

• Optical vault: reconfigurable bottle beam by conically refracted light
• Blue-detuned optical ring trap for Bose-Einstein condensates based on conical refraction
• Polarization tailored novel vector beams based on conical refraction
• Wave-vector and polarization dependence of conical refraction
• Super-Gaussian conical refraction beam
• Generating a three dimensional dark focus from a single conically refracted light beam
• Multiple rings formation in cascaded conical refraction
• Characterising Conical Refraction Optical Tweezers

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Transformation of vector beams with radial and azimuthal polarizations in biaxial crystals
• Evolution of vortices created by conical diffraction in biaxial crystals versus orbital angular momentum
• Theoretical and numerical investigation of internal conical refraction of structured light beams