THE TWO-SLIT INTERFERENCE OF VECTOR OPTICAL FIELDS WITH BOTH RADIALLY AND AZIMUTHALLY VARIANT STATES OF POLARIZATION

—The interference behaviors of a vector optical field with both radially and azimuthally variant states of polarization (SoP) through the Young’s two-slits are theoretically studied. The optical field distribution with periodic stripes in the far field results from the interference of the vector optical field through the Young’s two-slits with different initial SoP distributions. It is found that the far-field distribution can be manipulated by the incident vector optical field with the initial phase and SoP distributions. Particularly, the distribution of radially-variant SoP in the cross-section of the incident optical field provides an additional freedom to control the interference patterns of the x-component, y-component and total intensity distribution in far field. This approach provides a new method to further expand the functionality of an optical system by considering the distribution of SoP in field cross-section.