Modal decomposition of Laguerre Gaussian beams with different radial orders using optical correlation technique.

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore the use of an optical correlation technique to decompose different radial as well as azimuthal order modes of Laguerre Gaussian (LG) beams. We experimentally demonstrate the decomposition of single as well as composite LG beams and compare it with simulations. We report the modal decomposition with 27 dB extinction over several radial and azimuthal orders. Finally, we show that our modal decomposition is capable of sorting mode spectrum consisting of up to 10 LG modes with an accuracy of better than 97.8%.