Generating controllable Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes through intracavity spin-orbital angular momentum conversion of light

Abstract

The rapid developments in orbital-angular-momentum-carrying Laguerre-Gaussian (LG0 l) modes in recent years have facilitated progresses in optical communication, micromanipulation and quantum information. However, it is still challenging to efficiently generate bright, pure and selectable LG0 l laser modes in compact devices. Here, we demonstrate a low-threshold solid-state laser that can directly output selected high-purity LG0 l modes with high efficiency and controllability. Spin-orbital angular momentum conversion of light is used to reversibly convert the transverse modes inside cavity and determine the output mode index. The generated LG0 1 and LG0 2 laser modes have purities of ~97% and ~93% and slope efficiencies of ~11% and ~5.1%, respectively. Moreover, our cavity design can be easily extended to produce higher-order Laguerre-Gaussian modes and cylindrical vector beams. Such compact laser configuration features flexible control, low threshold, and robustness, making it a practical tool for applications in super-resolution imaging, high-precision interferometer and quantum correlations.

arXiv comment22 pages, 13 figures

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Arbitrary cylindrical vector beam generation enabled by polarization-selective Gouy phase shifter
• Laguerre-Gaussian transform for rotating image processing
• Up-conversion detection of mid-infrared light carrying orbital angular momentum
• Optical mode conversion via spatiotemporally modulated atomic susceptibility
• Generation of Chinese-characters-like modes with transverse mode locked lasers