Controlled generation of ultrafast vector vortex beams from a mode-locked fiber laser

Abstract

We report on a new class of mode-locked fiber laser that allows direct creation of ultrafast vector vortex beams at arbitrary positions on the higher-order Poincaré sphere. The on-demand generation of space-variant polarization patterns was realized by controlling geometric phases inside the laser resonator to map polarization to orbital angular momentum. Thanks to the ingenious cavity design, the required intracavity manipulation of the geometric phase imposed no disturbance on the passively mode-locked operation, thus demonstrating robust and flexible switching of vectorial modes with a 8.5-ps pulse duration. Analytical expressions were deduced to model the generated cylindrically-symmetric polarization profiles, and agreed exceedingly well with experimental observations. The presented fiber laser would constitute a compact light source for producing ultrafast pulses in high-purity structured modes, which may find broad applications in classical and quantum optics.

References in corpus (4)

• Optical spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion in inhomogeneous anisotropic media
• Realization of polarization evolution on higher-order Poincare sphere with metasurface
• Orbital angular momentum light frequency conversion and interference with quasi-phase matching crystals
• Fiber lasers generating radially and azimuthally polarized light

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Integrated pulse scope for tunable generation and intrinsic characterization of structured femtosecond laser