Besides a linear momentum, optical fields carry an angular momentum (AM), which have two intrinsic components: one is spin angular momentum (SAM) related to the polarization state of the field, and the other is orbital angular momentum (OAM) caused by the helical phase due to the existence of topological azimuthal charge. The two AM components of the optical field may not be independent of each other, and the Spin-to-Orbital AM conversion (STOC) under focusing will create a spin-dependent optical vortex in the longitudinal filed. Here we demonstrate a new mechanism (or novel way, new way, specific process) for the STOC based on a radial intensity gradient. The radial phase provides an effective way to control the local AM density, which induce counterintuitive orbital motion of isotropic particles in optical tweezers without intrinsic OAM. Our work not only provides fundamental insights into the spin-orbit interaction of light, but also push towards possible applications in optical micro-manipulation.
We report on an experiment that investigates the spatial mode conversion in the process of parametric down-conversion seeded by a light beam in a superposition of orbital angular momentum modes. This process is interpreted in terms of a geometric representation of first-order spatial modes in a Poincaré sphere, providing an intuitive image of the phase conjugation and the topological charge conservation. We also make a comparison with the analogous phenomenon for optical parametric oscillators.
We report on the dependence of the frequency-to-intensity noise conversion in the locking of an ultrafast laser against a high-finesse optical resonator from the Carrier Envelope Offset (CEO) frequency. By a proper combination of the cavity finesse and laser CEO frequency it is possible to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio of the laser intensity trapped into the optical resonator. The theoretical description of the problem together with the numerical simulations and experimental results are presented with the aim of a strong suppression of the intensity fluctuations of the trapped laser field…
We investigate the second harmonic generation of light field carrying orbital angular momentum in bulk $χ^{(2)}$ material. We show that due to conservation of energy and momentum, the frequency doubled beam light has a modified spatial distribution and mode characteristics. Through rigorous phase matching conditions, we demonstrate efficient mode and frequency conversion based on three wave nonlinear optical mixing.
By exploiting helical gratings (HGs), we propose and simulate flexible generation, conversion and exchange of fiber guided orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes. HGs can enable the generation of OAM modes, and the OAM conversion between two arbitrary modes guided in fibers. A specific HG can exchange the OAM states of a couple of OAM modes, i.e, OAM exchange. In addition, a Fabry Perot cavity cascaded with two identical reflective HGs can reflect converted OAM modes with a comb spectrum. The HGs based generation conversion and exchange of OAM modes are dependent on helix period, orientation, an…
We experimentally demonstrate the orbital angular momentum (OAM) conversion by the coupled nonlinear optical processes in a quasi-periodically poled LiTaO3 crystal. In such crystal, third-harmonic generation (THG) is realized by the coupled second-harmonic generation (SHG) and sum-frequency generation (SFG) processes, i.e., SHG is dependent on SFG and vice versa. The OAMs of the interacting waves are proved to be conserved in such coupled nonlinear optical processes. As increasing the input OAM in the experiment, the conversion efficiency decreases because of the reduced fundamental power inte…
As one fundamental property of light, the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photon has elicited widespread interest. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that the OAM conversion of light without any spin state can occur in homogeneous and isotropic medium when a specially tailored locally linearly polarized (STLLP) beam is strongly focused by a high numerical aperture (NA) objective lens. Through a high NA objective lens, the STLLP beams can generate identical twin foci with tunable distance between them controlled by input state of polarization. Such process admits partial OAM conversion from l…
Frequency up-conversion is an effective method of mid-infrared (MIR) detection by converting the long-wavelength photons to the visible domain, where efficient detectors are readily available. Here, we generate the MIR light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) from a difference frequency generation process and perform the up-conversion of it via sum frequency conversion in a bulk quasi-phase-matching crystal. The maximum quantum conversion efficiencies from MIR to visible are 34.0%, 10.4%, and 3.5% for light with topological charges of 0, 1, and 2, respectively, which is achieved by utiliz…
The coupling feature of helical gratings (HGs) has been studied on flexible conversion between two orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes by both the transverse and longitudinal modulation of HGs. Apart from one to one OAM exchange, HGs can achieve OAM transfer among multiple modes, provided both the helix and phase matching conditions are well satisfied for successive coupling. It is contributed from the fold number of modulation fringes of HGs and the difference multiplication of propagation constants between two of the successive modes. Based on the coupled mode theory, we investigate the mod…
Spin-to-orbital-angular-momentum conversion has attracted considerable interest as a tool to create exotic light beams, leading to the emergence of novel devices that implement this function. These converters exploit the geometrical phase to create helical beams of handedness determined by the chirality of the incident light. This property is finding important applications in quantum optics thanks to the demonstration of liquid crystal spin-to-orbital angular momentum converters (SOC) known as q-plates. Here we demonstrate high-efficiency SOCs in the visible based on dielectric metasurfaces th…
Spin-orbit interactions in optics traditionally describe an influence of the polarization degree of freedom of light on its spatial properties. The most prominent example is the generation of a spin-dependent optical vortex upon focusing or scattering of a circularly polarized plane-wave by a nanoparticle, converting spin to orbital angular momentum of light. Here, we present a mechanism of conversion of orbital-to-spin angular momentum of light upon scattering of a linearly polarized vortex beam by a spherical silicon nanoparticle. We show that focused linearly polarized Laguerre-Gaussian bea…
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 an…
We propose and experimentally demonstrate that a metasurface consisting of Pancharatnam-Berry phase optical elements can enable the full control of optical spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion. Our approach relies on the critical interference between the transmission and reflection upon the metasurfaceto create actively tunable and controllable conversion with a high output via coherent control of the two incident beams. The introduced control methodology is general and could be an important step toward the development of functional optical devices for practical applications.
The key information about any nanoscale system are orientations and conformations of its parts. Unfortunately, these details are often hidden below the diffraction limit and elaborate techniques must be used to optically probe them. Here, we present a single-shot imaging technique allowing time-resolved monitoring of rotation motion of metal nanorods, realized in a wide-field regime and with no ambiguity of the measured angles. In our novel method, the nanorod orientation is imprinted onto a geometric phase of scattered light composed of the opposite spin states. By spin-to-orbital angular mom…
We demonstrate the coherent frequency conversion of structured light, optical beams in which the phase varies in each point of the transverse plane, from the near infrared (803nm) to the visible (527nm). The frequency conversion process makes use of sum-frequency generation in a periodically poled lithium niobate (ppLN) crystal with the help of a 1540-nm Gaussian pump beam. We perform far-field intensity measurements of the frequency-converted field, and verify the sought-after transformation of the characteristic intensity and phase profiles for various input modes. The coherence of the frequ…
We introduce a novel and simple modulation technique to tailor optical beams with a customized amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM). The technique is based on the modulation of the angular spectrum of a seed beam, which allows us to specify in an independent manner the value of OAM and the shape of the resulting beam transverse intensity. We experimentally demonstrate our method by arbitrarily shaping the radial and angular intensity distributions of Bessel and Laguerre-Gauss beams, while their OAM value remains constant. Our experimental results agree with the numerical and theoretical pr…
Near-field patterns of light provide a way to optically trap, deliver and sort single nanoscopic particles in a wide variety of applications in nanophotonics, microbiology and nanotechnology. Using rigorous electromagnetic theory, we investigate the forces and trapping performance of near-field optical tweezers carrying spin and orbital angular momenta. The trapping field is assumed to be generated by a total internal reflection microscope objective at a glass-water interface in conditions where most of the transmitted light is evanescent. We find novel aspects of these tweezers, including the…
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) has gained great interest due to its most attractive feature of high dimensionality, and several ground-breaking demonstrations in communication based on OAM multiplexing have been carried out. Accordingly, a rapid data-density growth from OAM multiplexing has posed a great challenge to the signal-processing layer. Meanwhile, in another area, optical signal-processing circuit based on photon-phonon conversion has received considerable attention and made rapid progress. Here, with an aim of finding the intersection between OAM multiplexing and photon-phonon conver…
In this work we have performed an analysis of electrostriction mechanism of optical to acoustical energy conversion on the interface of two materials with low optical absorption. We compared this method of conversion with widely used thermal conversion based on thin metal film. It was shown, that the contribution of electrostriction mechanism is significantly lower in case of homogeneous medium. We demonstrated the possibility to amplify the generated acoustic signal by excitation of the guided modes, which energy is localized in a thin (of about 200-400 nm thickness) dielectric layer. Due to …
We report on generation and control of tunable, broad orbital angular momentum (OAM) spectrum of a vortex beam. Using two spiral phase plates (SPPs), we have converted the Gaussian beam of Yb-fiber femtosecond laser at 1064 nm into optical vortices of orders, l=1-6, with conversion efficiency >95%. By adjusting the transverse shift of the SPPs with respect to the incident Gaussian beam axis, we have transformed the symmetric (intensity distribution) optical vortex of order, l, into an asymmetric vortex beam of broad OAM spectrum of orders, l, l-1, l-2,..,0. While the position of the SPPs deter…
Photoluminescence spectra have been investigated in erbium doped GaLaS(O) glasses. The samples demonstrate intense green emission bands centered at around 525 and 550 nm due to up-conversion processes in erbium ions. The theoretical description of up-conversion intensity as a function of excitation intensity has been offered. It is based on a solution of a system of rate equations taking into account three up-conversion transitions.
Structured light, in particular light possessing orbital angular momentum (OAM), has been actively studied in recent decades. Helical Bragg grating (HBG) is a reflecting optical element, which predicted to be able to convert the OAM of light in waveguides and fibers. However, the HBG has not been demonstrated experimentally yet. Here we report the first experimental manifestation of HBG created in the form of a waveguide with depressed-index cladding. Few-mode channel helical-depressed-cladding waveguides (HDCWs) have been written in a YAG crystal by a femtosecond laser beam. The HDCW pitches …
A new physical mechanism to achieve spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion based on the interaction of an intense circularly polarized (CP) laser beam with a plane foil is presented and studied for the first time. It has been verified by both simulation and theoretical analysis that vortex harmonics carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) are generated after a relativistic CP laser beam, even a Gaussian beam, impinges normally on a plane foil. The generation of this vortex harmonics is attributed to the vortex oscillation of the plasma surface driven harmonically by the vortex longitudina…
Here we report and discuss the avalanche-like up-conversion behavior in absence of the avalanche. We experimentally observed significant changes in the slope of the curve for the intensity dependence of up-conversion luminescence of erbium ions in green band on the pump intensity of the diode laser. Such changes are typical for the photon avalanche. However, the concentration of erbium ions is insufficient for an efficient exchange of energy between them, and excitation of a photon avalanche is not possible. Using a simple three-level approximation of the up-conversion process model, we have s…
The two-color strong-field mixing in gas medium is a widely-used approach to generate bright broadband terahertz (THz) radiation. Here, we present a new and counterintuitive method to promote THz performance in two-color scheme. Beyond our knowledge that the maximum THz generation occurs with two-color foci overlapped, we found that, when the foci of two-color beams are noticeably separated along the propagation axis resulting in cascading plasmas, the THz conversion efficiency is surged by one order of magnitude and the bandwidth is stretched by more than 2 times, achieving $10^{-3}$ conversi…
We report the realization of spin-dependent splitting with arbitrary intensity patterns based on all-dielectric metasurface. Compared to the plasmonic metasurfaces, the all-dielectric metasurface exhibit more high transmission efficiency and conversion efficiency, which make it is possible to achieve the spin-dependent splitting with arbitrary intensity patterns. Our findings suggest a way for generation and manipulation of spin photons, and thereby offer the possibility of developing spin-based nanophotonic applications.
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) is a promising degree of freedom for fundamental studies in electromagnetics and quantum mechanics. The unlimited state space of OAM shows a great potential to enhance channel capacities of classical and quantum communications. By exploring the Pancharatnam-Berry phase concept and engineering anisotropic scatterers in a metasurface with spatially varying orientations, a plane wave with zero OAM can be converted to a vortex beam carrying nonzero OAM. In this paper, we proposed two types of novel PEC (perfect electric conductor)-PMC (perfect magnetic conductor) ani…
Optical fibers can support various modal forms, including vector modes, linear polarization (LP) modes, and orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes, etc. The modal correlation among these modes is investigated via Jones matrix, associated with polarization and helical phase corresponding to spin angular momentum (SAM) and OAM of light, respectively. We can generate different modal forms by adopting superposed helical gratings (SHGs) with opposite helix orientations. Detailed analysis and discussion on mode conversion is given as for mode coupling in optical fibers with both low and high contrast …
We describe a novel approach for generating light beams that carry orbital angular momentum (OAM) by means of total internal reflection in an isotropic medium. A continuous space-varying cylindrically symmetric reflector, in the form of \textit{two glued hollow axicons}, is used to introduce a nonuniform rotation of polarisation into a linearly polarised input beam. This device acts as a full spin-to-orbital angular momentum convertor. It functions by switching the helicity of the incoming beam's polarisation, and by conservation of total angular momentum thereby generates a well-defined value…
The unique ring-shaped intensity patterns and helical phase fronts of optical vortices make them useful in many applications. Here we report for the first time efficient Raman frequency conversion between vortex modes in twisted hydrogen-filled single-ring hollow core photonic crystal fiber (SR-PCF). High fidelity transmission of optical vortices in untwisted SR-PCF becomes more and more difficult as the orbital angular momentum (OAM) order increases, due to scattering at structural imperfections in the fiber microstructure. In helically twisted SR-PCF, however, the degeneracy between left- an…
As one fundamental property of light, the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photon has elicited widespread interest. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that the OAM conversion of light without spin state can occur in homogeneous and isotropic medium when a line-variant locally linearly polarized (LVLLP) beam is strongly focused by a high numerical aperture (NA) objective lens. The high-NA objective lens here acts as a modulator that enables the spin-to-orbital OAM conversion of the two components of left and right circular vibrations of the input SDLLP beam spatially separated. Hence, partial …
Light with nonzero orbital angular momentum (OAM) or twisted light is promising for quantum communication applications such as OAM-entangled photonic qubits. There exist photonic OAM to photonic spin angular momentum (SAM), as well as photonic SAM to electronic SAM interfaces but not any direct photonic OAM-electronic SAM (flying to stationary) media converter within a single device. Here, we propose a scheme which converts photonic OAM to electronic SAM and vice versa within a single nanophotonic device. We employed a photonic crystal nanocavity with an embedded quantum dot (QD) which confine…
The electromagnetic momentum transferred transfered to scattering particles is proportional to the intensity of the incident fields, however, the momentum of single photons ($\hbar k$) does not naturally appear in these classical expressions. Here, we discuss an alternative to Maxwell's stress tensor that renders the classical electromagnetic field momentum compatible to the quantum mechanical one. This is achieved through the introduction of the quantum conversion which allows the transformation, including units, of the classical fields to wave-function equivalent fields.
With increasing interest in using orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes in high-power laser systems, accurate mathematical descriptions of the high-intensity modes at focus are required for realistic modelling. In this work, we derive various high intensity orbital angular momentum focal spot intensity distributions generated by Gaussian, super-Gaussian, and ideal flat-top beams common to high-power laser systems. These intensity distributions are then approximated using fitted Laguerre-Gaussian basis functions as a practical way for describing high-power OAM beams in theoretical and numerical …
