Shaping non-cylindrical optical vortices

Design and characterization of structured light beams carrying tailored orbital angular momentum, including vortices with arbitrary, non-cylindrical geometries.

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Overview

Light can carry orbital angular momentum (OAM); when that momentum circulates around a point, the beam hosts an optical vortex. This project develops methods to characterize and shape such beams — including vortices whose phase structure is not cylindrically symmetric — and studies their propagation and interaction with matter.

Goals

• Generate arbitrary-geometry OAM beams with spatial light modulators.
• Quantify the OAM content and its evolution on propagation.
• Explore applications in optical tweezers and plasmonic excitation.

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