Optical vortices 30 years on: OAM manipulation from topological charge to multiple singularities

Yijie Shen; Xuejiao Wang; Zhenwei Xie; Changjun Min; Xing Fu; Qiang Liu; Mali Gong; Xiaocong Yuan

doi:10.1038/s41377-019-0194-2

Optical vortices 30 years on: OAM manipulation from topological charge to multiple singularities

Light Sci Appl. 2019 Oct 2:8:90. doi: 10.1038/s41377-019-0194-2. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Yijie Shen^{1

2}, Xuejiao Wang³, Zhenwei Xie⁴, Changjun Min⁴, Xing Fu^{1

2}, Qiang Liu^{1

2}, Mali Gong^{1

2}, Xiaocong Yuan⁴

Affiliations

¹ 1Key Laboratory of Photonic Control Technology (Tsinghua University), Ministry of Education, 100084 Beijing, China.
² 2State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China.
³ National Engineering Laboratory for Public Safety Risk Perception and Control by Big Data (NEL-PSRPC), China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology of CETC, China Electronic Technology Group Corporation, 100041 Beijing, China.
⁴ 4Nanophotonics Research Center, Shenzhen University, 518060 Shenzhen, China.

Abstract

Thirty years ago, Coullet et al. proposed that a special optical field exists in laser cavities bearing some analogy with the superfluid vortex. Since then, optical vortices have been widely studied, inspired by the hydrodynamics sharing similar mathematics. Akin to a fluid vortex with a central flow singularity, an optical vortex beam has a phase singularity with a certain topological charge, giving rise to a hollow intensity distribution. Such a beam with helical phase fronts and orbital angular momentum reveals a subtle connection between macroscopic physical optics and microscopic quantum optics. These amazing properties provide a new understanding of a wide range of optical and physical phenomena, including twisting photons, spin-orbital interactions, Bose-Einstein condensates, etc., while the associated technologies for manipulating optical vortices have become increasingly tunable and flexible. Hitherto, owing to these salient properties and optical manipulation technologies, tunable vortex beams have engendered tremendous advanced applications such as optical tweezers, high-order quantum entanglement, and nonlinear optics. This article reviews the recent progress in tunable vortex technologies along with their advanced applications.

Keywords: Optical physics.

Publication types

Review