Open AccessGeneration of arbitrary vector beams with cascaded liquid crystal spatial light modulators
Author(s) -
Zhen-Yu Rong,
Ya-jie Han,
Shuzhen Wang,
Chen Guo
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.22.001636
Subject(s) - optics , polarization (electrochemistry) , spatial light modulator , physics , holography , amplitude , bessel function , phase modulation , orthogonal polarization spectral imaging , light beam , laser , chemistry , phase noise
A flexible approach is presented to generate vector beams with arbitrary polarization and complex amplitude by means of two cascaded transmissive liquid crystal spatial light modulators (LCSLMs). The configuration of the cascaded LCSLM system and its modulation characteristic are introduced. Theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration prove that the system in combination with a double-pass computer-generated hologram and a black-and-white pattern can generate vector beams with arbitrary polarization and complex amplitude by respectively controlling the complex amplitudes of two orthogonal polarization components of the beams. Using this system, we successfully generate radially polarized vector beams with helical phase distributions and vector Bessel beams with inhomogeneous amplitude distributions in experiments.