We consider the propagation of a tilted high order paraxial vortex-beam through a homogeneous anisotropic medium of a uniaxial crystal. We found that the initially circularly polarized beam bearing the l-order optical vortex splits into ordinary and extraordinary beams with a complex vortex structure. After a series of dislocation reactions the vortices gather together at the axis of the partial beam with the initial circular polarization shaping the l-order optical vortex. However, only l-1 vortices gather together on the axis of the partial beam with the orthogonal circular polarization. One optical vortex is shifted along the direction perpendicular to the inclination plane of the beam. Such a vortex displacement induces the transverse shift of the partial beam. In fact, we deal with the beam quadrefringence in a uniaxial, homogeneous anisotropic medium. The first two beams is a result of the splitting of the initial tilted beam into the ordinary and extraordinary once.
An absorptive Rayleigh dielectric sphere in a non-diffracting non-paraxial fractional Bessel vortex beam experiences a spin torque. The axial and transverse radiation spin torque components are evaluated in the dipole approximation using the radiative correction of the electric field. Particular emphasis is given on the polarization as well as changing the topological charge and the beam's half-cone angle. When the beam order is zero, the axial spin torque component vanishes. However, when the beam order becomes a real positive number, the vortex beam induces left-handed (negative) axial spin …
We present a set of paraxial light beams with cylindrical symmetry, smooth and localized transversal profile carrying finite power, that develop intensity singularities when they are focused in a linear medium, such as vacuum. They include beams with orbital angular momentum and with radial polarization, in which case they develop punctual phase and polarization singularities surrounded by infinitely bright rings, along with singular longitudinal fields. In practice, these effects are manifested in focal intensities and spot sizes, vortex bright ring intensities and radii, and strengths of the…
We investigate topological aspects of sub-nm electron vortex beams upon elastic propagation through atomic scattering potentials. Two main aspects can be distinguished: (i) Significantly reduced delocalization compared to a similar non-vortex beam if the beam centers on an atomic column and (ii) site symmetry dependent splitting of higher-order vortex beams. Furthermore, the results provide insight into the complex vortex line fabric within the elastically scattered wave containing characteristic vortex loops predominantly attached to atomic columns and characteristic twists of vortex lines ar…
We study paraxial beam propagation parallel to the screw axis of a dislocated amorphous medium that is optically weakly inhomogeneous and isotropic. The effect of the screw dislocation on the beam's orbital angular momentum is shown to change the optical vortex strength, rendering vortex annihilation or generation possible. Furthermore, the dislocation is shown to induce a weak \textit{biaxial} anisotropy in the medium due to the elasto-optic effect, which changes the beam's spin angular momentum as well as causing precession of the polarization. We derive the equations of motion of the beam a…
A plane-wave approximation in particle physics implies that a width of a massive wave packet $σ_{\perp}$ is much larger than its Compton wavelength $λ_c = \hbar/mc$. For Gaussian beams or for packets with the non-singular phases (say, the Airy beams), corrections to this approximation are attenuated as $λ_c^2/σ_{\perp}^2 \ll 1$ and usually negligible. Here we show that this situation drastically changes for particles with the phase vortices associated with an orbital angular momentum $\ell\hbar$. For highly twisted beams with $|\ell| \gg 1$, the non-paraxial corrections get $|\ell|$ times enha…
Neglecting the electric field component along the light's propagation direction is a common practice, known as paraxial approximation. However, experimental evidence and theory on the head-on excitation of atoms by Laguerre-Gaussian beams reveal that the full vector character of the light field has to be taken into account. Optical vortices are a large family of fields, being Laguerre-Gaussian only one particular case. Now we extend the study of the applicability of the paraxial approximation to a broader set of optical vortices by considering the interaction of atoms with generalized Laguerre…
Reformulation of conventional beam definitions into their bidirectional versions and use of Hertz potentials make beam fields exact vector solutions to Maxwell's equations. This procedure is applied to higher-order elegant Laguerre-Gaussian beams of TM and TE polarization. Their vortex and anti-vortex co-axial compositions of equal and opposite topological charges are given in a closed analytic form. Polarization components of the composed beams are specified by their radial and azimuthal indices. The longitudinal components are common for beam compositions of both types, meanwhile their trans…
The orbital angular momentum Hall effect and spin Hall effect of electron vortex beams (EVB) have been studied for the EVBs interacting with laser field. In the scenario of paraxial beam, the cumulative effect of the orbit-orbit interaction of EVBs and laser fields drives the orbital Hall effect, which in turn produces a shift of the center of the beam from that of the field-free case towards the polarization axis of photons. Besides, for non-paraxial beams one can also perceive a similar shift of the center of the beam owing to spin Hall effect involving spin-orbit interaction. Our analysis s…
We have proposed a unified framework towards the dynamics of optical and electron vortex beams from the perspective of geometric phase and the associated Hall effects. The unification is attributed to the notion that the spin degrees of freedom of a relativistic particle, either massive or massless, is associated with a vortex line. %The formulation in cylindrical coordinates leads to a local vortex structure related to orbital angular momentum(OAM). Based on cylindrical corodinate formulation, which leads to a local vortex structure related to orbital angular momentum (OAM), it can be shown t…
We have derived the corresponding equations and found their solutions both for nonparaxial and paraxial beams. The paraxial solutions we have presented in the form of the generalized Hermite-Gaussian beams propagating perpendicular to the optical axis of a uniaxial crystal. We have also constructed the generalized Laguerre-Gaussian beams at the z=0 plane and analyzed their evolution in a homogeneous isotropic medium. Comparing it with the evolution of the standard Laguerre-Gaussian beams with and in the crystal we have revealed that the additional elliptic deformation of the extraordinary beam…
We show that a homogeneous and isotropic slab, illuminated by a circularly polarized beam with no topological charge, produces vortices of order two in the opposite circularly polarized components of the reflected and transmitted fields, as a consequence of the difference between transverse magnetic and transverse electric dynamics. In the epsilon-near-zero regime, we find that vortex generation is remarkably efficient in sub-wavelength thick slabs up to the paraxial regime. This physically stems from the fact that a vacuum paraxial field can excite a nonparaxial field inside an epsilon-near-z…
We consider relativistic deformations of interfering paraxial waves moving in the transverse direction. Owing to superluminal transverse phase velocities, noticeable deformations of the interference patterns arise when the waves move with respect to each other with non-relativistic velocities. Similar distortions also appear on a mutual tilt of the interfering waves, which causes a phase delay analogous to the relativistic time delay. We illustrate these observations by the interference between a vortex wave beam and a plane wave, which exhibits a pronounced deformation of the radial fringes i…
Longitudinal electromagnetic fields generally become comparable with the usually dominant transverse components in strongly-focussed, non-paraxial beams. For optical vortex modes it is highlighted here how their angular momentum properties produce longitudinal fields that in general must be accounted for, even within the paraxial regime. First-order longitudinal components of quantized Laguerre-Gaussian modes are derived and numerically studied with respect to the paraxial parameter, highlighting light-matter and spin-orbit interactions that stem from longitudinal fields of weakly-focussed, pa…
Analytical forms of the optical helicity and optical chirality of monochromatic Laguerre-Gaussian optical vortex beams are derived up to second order in the paraxial parameter $kw_0$. We show that input linearly polarised optical vortices which possess no optical chirality, helicity or spin densities can acquire them at the focal plane for values of a beam waist $w_0 \approx λ$ via an OAM-SAM conversion which is manifest through longitudinal (with respect to the direction of propagation) fields. We place the results into context with respect to the intrinsic and extrinsic nature of SAM and OAM…
In this paper, we present a systematic study of beam shifts and angular momenta of paraxial vortex beams at air-left-handed material (LHM) interfaces. It is shown that, compared to their counterparts at air-right-handed material (RHM) interfaces, the spatial Goos-Hänchen (GH) and Imbert-Fedorov (IF) shifts remains the same, while the angular GH and IF shifts are reversed, at air-LHM interfaces. The spatial and angular shifts of paraxial vortex beams have their respective origins in transverse angular momenta and transverse linear momenta. The spatial GH and IF shifts remain unreversed as a res…
A quantum state of an electron influences its electromagnetic field. If a spatial profile of the electron wave packet is not Gaussian, the particle may acquire additional intrinsic multipole moments, which alter its field, especially at small distances. Here the fields of a vortex electron with orbital angular momentum $\ell$ are obtained in a form of a multipole expansion with an electric quadrupole term kept by using the generalized (non-paraxial) Laguerre-Gaussian beams. The quadrupole contribution arises beyond a paraxial approximation, is linearly enhanced for highly twisted packets with …
This paper is devoted to study the propagation of light beams carrying orbital angular momentum in optically anisotropic media. We first review some properties of homogeneous anisotropic media, and describe how the paraxial formalism is modified in order to proceed with a new approach dealing with a general setting of paraxial propagation along uniaxial inhomogeneous media. This approach is suitable for describing the space-variant-optical-axis phase plates.
Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) waves were first recognized as those specific vortex solutions of the paraxial Helmholtz equation for which the orbital contribution to the total angular momentum of the beam yields an integer multiple of $\hbar$ along the propagation direction. However, this class of solutions can be generalized to include more sophisticated vector vortex waves with coupled polarization and spatial complexity, that are eigenfunctions of the third component of the angular momentum operator. In this work, a rigorous framework is proposed for the analysis of all the possible famili…
In this paper we will analyze the propagation of the angular spectrum of the electromagnetic field through a finite length uniaxial crystal. We solve the boundary conditions of the fields at an interface of an isotropic medium and an uniaxial anisotropic medium with the optical axis in an arbitrary direction and soon after we choose the optical axis in a plane formed by the direction of propagation (z-axis) and the x-axis . We show how the couplings occur between the components of the field and in what situations we can give a vector or scalar treatment for the propagation
In this work a method for generating a long-range optical pulling force is presented which is realized by utilizing a vortex beam and a device designed based on transformation optics through conformal mapping. The device works by transforming an input perfect vortex beam into an almost non-paraxial plane wave, and generates a pulling force by maximizing the forward momentum of the beam. A three-dimensional full-wave analysis of the device is performed and the optical force is computed by the Maxwell stress tensor method. The simulation results show a very good agreement with the theoretical ca…
Vector vortex beams possess a topological property that derives both from the spatially varying amplitude of the field and also from its varying polarization. This property arises as a consequence of the inherent Skyrmionic nature of such beams and is quantified by the associated Skyrmion number, which embodies a topological property of the beam. We illustrate this idea for some of the simplest vector beams and discuss the physical significance of the Skyrmion number in this context.
One of the reasons for the tremendous success of a plane-wave approximation in particle physics is that the non-paraxial corrections to such observables as energy, magnetic moment, scattering cross section, and so on are attenuated as $λ_c^2/σ_{\perp}^2 \ll 1$ where $σ_{\perp}$ is a beam width and $λ_c = \hbar/mc$ is a Compton wavelength. This amounts to less than $10^{-14}$ for modern electron accelerators and less than $10^{-6}$ for electron microscopes. Here we show that these corrections are $|\ell|$ times enhanced for vortex particles with high orbital angular momenta $|\ell|\hbar$, which…
We study propagation of a pair of oppositely charged and mutually incoherent vortices in anisotropic nonlinear optical media. Mutual interactions retard the delocalization of the vortex core observed for isolated vortices.
A new type of exact solutions of the full 3 dimensional spatial Helmholtz equation for the case of non-paraxial Gaussian beams is presented here. We consider appropriate representation of the solution for Gaussian beams in a spherical coordinate system by substituting it to the full 3 dimensional spatial Helmholtz Equation. Analyzing the structure of the final equation, we obtain that governing equations for the components of our solution are represented by the proper Riccati equations of complex value, which has no analytical solution in general case. But we find one of the possible exact sol…
Extraordinary optical transmission and good focusing properties of a two-dimensional scattering structure is presented. The structure is made of Fresnel zone plates periodically arranged along two orthogonal directions. Each plate consists of two ring-shaped waveguides supporting modes that match the symmetry of a circularly polarized incident plane wave. High field concentration at the focal plane is obtained with short transverse and long longitudinal foci diameters. Optical vortex excitation in a paraxial region of the transmitted field is also observed and analysed in terms of cross-polari…
The polarization of light can exhibit unusual features when singular optical beams are involved. In 3-dimensional polarized random media the polarization orientation around singularities describe 1/2 or 3/2 Möbius strips. It has been predicted that if singular beams intersect non-collinearly in free space, the polarization ellipse rotates forming many-turn Möbius strips or twisted ribbons along closed loops around a central singularity. These polarization features are important because polarization is an aspect of light that mediate strong interactions with matter, with potential for new appli…
The analytical solution for the propagation of the laser beam with optical vortex through the system of lenses is presented. The optical vortex is introduced into the laser beam (described as Gaussian beam) by spiral phase plate. The solution is general as it holds for the optical vortex of any integer topological charge, the off-axis position of the spiral phase plate and any number of lenses. Some intriguing conclusions are discussed. The higher order vortices are unstable and split under small phase or amplitude disturbance. Nevertheless, we have shown that off-axis higher order vortices ar…
In this paper we perform a fusion between two important theoretical methodologies, one related to the Frozen Wave beams, which are non-diffracting beams whose longitudinal intensity pattern can be chosen a priori in an medium (absorbing or not), and the other related to the Airy-Type pulses, which are pulses resistant to dispersion effects in dispersive materials. As a result, a new method emerges, capable of providing vortex pulses resistant to three concomitant effects, i.e.: diffraction, dispersion and attenuation; while concurrently the spatial variation of the wave intensity along its axi…
The prevailing notion is that the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of an optical vortex can only be transferred to the internal degrees of freedom (i.e. electronic motion) of materials through electric quadrupole and higher-order multipole interactions. Here it is highlighted how this is an artefact of the paraxial approximation and that optical OAM can be transferred to electronic motion via dipole transitions under the correct experimental conditions where non-paraxial, longitudinal fields must be accounted for.
We describe the evolution of a paraxial electromagnetic wave characterizing by a non-uniform polarization distribution with singularities and propagating in a weakly anisotropic medium. Our approach is based on the Stokes vector evolution equation applied to a non-uniform initial polarization field. In the case of a homogeneous medium, this equation is integrated analytically. This yields a 3-dimensional distribution of the polarization parameters containing singularities, i.e. C-lines of circular polarization and L-surfaces of linear polarization. The general theory is applied to specific exa…
Circular dichroism is the differential rate of absorption of right- and left-handed circularly polarized light by chiral particles. Optical vortices which convey orbital angular momentum (OAM) possess a chirality associated with the clockwise or anti-clockwise twisting of their wavefront. Here it is highlighted that both oriented and randomly oriented chiral particles absorb photons from twisted beams at different rates depending on whether the vortex twists to the right or the left through a dipole coupling scheme. This is in contrast to previous studies that investigated dipole couplings wit…
We consider the paraxial propagation of nondiffracting singular beams inside natural biaxial and biaxially-induced birefringent media in vicinity of one of the optical axes in terms of eigenmode vortex-beams, whose angular momentum does not change upon propagation. We have predicted a series of new optical effects in the natural biaxial crystals such as the stable propagation of vector singular beams bearing the coupled optical vortices with fractional topological charges, the conversion of the zero-order Bessel beam with a uniformly distributed linear polarization into the radially-, azimutha…
A novel type of discrete basis for paraxial beams is proposed, consisting of monomial vortices times polynomials of Gaussians in the radial variable. These bases have the distinctive property that the effective size of their elements is roughly independent of element order, meaning that the optimal scaling for expanding a localized field does not depend significantly on truncation order. This behavior contrasts with that of bases composed of polynomials times Gaussians, such as Hermite-Gauss and Laguerre-Gauss modes, where the scaling changes roughly as the inverse square root of the truncatio…
In this paper we show that it is possible to structure the longitudinal polarization component of light. We illustrate our approach by demonstrating linked and knotted longitudinal vortex lines acquired upon non-paraxially propagating a tightly focused sub-wavelength beam. Remaining degrees of freedom in the transverse polarization components can be exploited to generate customized topological vector beams.
Fundamental and applied concepts concerning the ability of light beams to carry a certain mechanical angular momentum with respect to the propagation axis are reviewed and discussed. Following issues are included: Historical reference; Angular momentum of a paraxial beam and its constituents; Spin angular momentum and paradoxes associated with it; Orbital angular momentum; Circularly-spiral beams: examples and methods of generation; Orbital angular momentum and the intensity moments; Symmetry breakdown and decomposition of the orbital angular momentum; Mechanical models of the vortex light bea…
Special features of the optical-vortex (OV) beams generated by thick holographic elements (HE) with embedded phase singularity are considered theoretically. The volume HE structure is based on the 3D pattern of interference between an OV beam and a standard reference wave with regular wavefront. The incident beam diffraction is described within the framework of a linear single-scattering model in which the volume HE is represented by a set of parallel thin layers with the "fork" holographic structure. An explicit integral expression is derived for the complex amplitude distribution of the diff…
We present a novel procedure to solve the Schrödinger equation, which in optics is the paraxial wave equation, with an initial multisingular vortex Gaussian beam. This initial condition has a number of singularities in a plane transversal to propagation embedded in a Gaussian beam. We use the scattering modes, which are solutions of the paraxial wave equation that can be combined straightforwardly to express the initial condition and therefore permit to solve the problem. To construct the scattering modes one needs to obtain a particular set of polynomials, which play an analogous role than La…
We address the issue of nonlinear modes in a two-dimensional waveguide array, spatially distributed in the Lieb lattice geometry, and modeled by a saturable nonlinear Schrödinger equation. In particular, we analyze the existence and stability of vortex-type solutions finding localized patterns with symmetric and asymmetric profiles, ranging from topological charge S=1 to S=3. By taking into account the presence of anisotropy, which is inherent to experimental realization of waveguide arrays, we identify different stability behaviors according to their topological charge. Our findings might giv…
A circularly polarized rotationally symmetric paraxial laser beams carries hbar angular momentum per photon as spin. Focussing the beam with a rotationally symmetric lens cannot change this angular momentum flux, yet the focussed beam must have spin less than hbar per photon. The remainder of the original spin is converted to orbital angular momentum, manifesting itself as a longitudinal optical vortex at the focus. This demonstrates that optical orbital angular momentum can be generated by a rotationally symmetric optical system which preserves the total angular momentum of the beam.
Laguerre-Gauss (LG) modes represent an orthonormal basis set of solutions of the paraxial wave equation. LG are characterized by two integer parameters $n$ and $\ell$ that are related to the radial and azimuthal profile of the beam. The physical dimension of the mode is instead determined by the beam waist parameter $w_0$: only LG modes with the same $w_0$ satisfy the orthogonality relation. Here, we derive the scalar product between two LG modes with different beam waists and show how this result can be exploited to derive different expansions of a generic beam in terms of LG modes. In partic…
The scattering of an electromagnetic plane wave from Young pinholes upon a quasi-homogeneous (QH) anisotropic medium is studied within the accuracy of the first-order Born approximation. By assuming that the diffractive wave from pinholes are paraxial with respect to the propagation direction, it is shown that the correlation of incident wave, anisotropic correlation statistics of the medium, and the pinhole size configuration can influence the statistical properties of the scattered field. In particular, the normalized spectral density, spectral degree of coherence, and spectral degree of pol…
Polarization of light beams is one of the most important physical phenomena. But up till now it was only described in the paraxial approximation in which it is considered to be a single degree of freedom that is characterized by the local Stokes parameters over the transverse plane. Based on such a description, vector vortex beams are considered to be entangled in polarization and spatial mode. Here we show that there is not any entanglement in a large class of representative vector vortex beams, including the well-known cylindrical-vector beams. This is achieved by developing an approach to e…
Institute for Quantum Studies, Chapman University（查普曼大学量子研究所）；Nexus for Quantum Technologies, University of Ottawa（渥太华大学量子技术联盟）；German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Quantum Technologies（德国航空航天中心（DLR）量子技术研究所）
