On-chip generation of adjustable cylindrical vector beams.

Cylindrical vector (CV) beams have sparked considerable interest due to their extraordinary vectorial properties, desirable for applications ranging from microscopy to high energy physics. Increasing demand for cost-effective, small-footprint photonics has fueled the development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) capable of generating structured light beams in recent years. This technology however suffers from low reconfigurability, limiting the variety of CV beams that can be generated from these devices. In this article, we propose a novel design to overcome this limitation, which exploits the polarization-dependent response of annular gratings embedded into a microring resonator to generate re-configurable CV beams. We demonstrate the viability of the device in a proof-of-principle experiment including spatially resolved Stokes measurements.

Single-shot characterization of vector beams by generalized measurements.

Vector vortex beams, featuring independent spatial modes in orthogonal polarization components, offer an increase in information density for emerging applications in both classical and quantum communication technology. Recent advances in optical instrumentation have led to the ability of generating and manipulating such beams. Their tomography is generally accomplished by projection measurements to identify polarization as well as spatial modes. In this paper we demonstrate spatially resolved generalized measurements of arbitrary vector vortex beams. We perform positive operator valued measurements (POVMs) in an interferometric setup that characterizes the vector light mode in a single-shot. This offers superior data acquisition speed compared to conventional Stokes tomography techniques, with potential benefits for communication protocols as well as dynamic polarization microscopy of materials.

Passive broadband full Stokes polarimeter using a Fresnel cone.

Light's polarisation contains information about its source and interactions, from distant stars to biological samples. Polarimeters can recover this information, but reliance on birefringent or rotating optical elements limits their wavelength range and stability. Here we present a static, single-shot polarimeter based on a Fresnel cone - the direct spatial analogue to the popular rotating quarter-wave plate approach. We measure the average angular accuracy to be 2.9° (3.6°) for elliptical (linear) polarization states across the visible spectrum, with the degree of polarisation determined to within 0.12 (0.08). Our broadband full Stokes polarimeter is robust, cost-effective, and could find applications in hyper-spectral polarimetry and scanning microscopy.

Achromatic vector vortex beams from a glass cone.

The reflection of light is governed by the laws first described by Augustin-Jean Fresnel: on internal reflection, light acquires a phase shift, which depends on its polarization direction with respect to the plane of incidence. For a conical reflector, the cylindrical symmetry is echoed in an angular variation of this phase shift, allowing us to create light modes with phase and polarization singularities. Here we observe the phase and polarization profiles of light that is back reflected from a solid glass cone and, in the case of circular input light, discover that not only does the beam contain orbital angular momentum but can trivially be converted to a radially polarized beam. Importantly, the Fresnel coefficients are reasonably stable across the visible spectrum, which we demonstrate by measuring white light polarization profiles. This discovery provides a highly cost-effective technique for the generation of broadband orbital angular momentum and radially polarized beams.

Spatially dependent electromagnetically induced transparency.

Recent years have seen vast progress in the generation and detection of structured light, with potential applications in high capacity optical data storage and continuous variable quantum technologies. Here we measure the transmission of structured light through cold rubidium atoms and observe regions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), using the phase profile as control parameter for the atomic opacity. With q plates we generate a probe beam with azimuthally varying phase and polarization structure, and its right and left circular polarization components provide the probe and control of an EIT transition. We observe an azimuthal modulation of the absorption profile that is dictated by the phase and polarization structure of the probe laser. Conventional EIT systems do not exhibit phase sensitivity. We show, however, that a weak transverse magnetic field closes the EIT transitions, thereby generating phase-dependent dark states which in turn lead to phase-dependent transparency, in agreement with our measurements.

High speed switching between arbitrary spatial light profiles.

Complex images, inscribed into the spatial profile of a laser beam or even a single photon, offer a highly efficient method of data encoding. Here we present a prototype system which can quickly modulate between arbitrary images. We display an array of holograms, each defined by its phase and intensity profile, on a spatial light modulator. The input beam is then steered by an acousto-optic modulator to one of these holograms, where it is converted into the desired light mode. We demonstrate switching between characters within three separate alphabets at a switching rate of up to10 kHz. This rate is limited by our detection system, and we anticipate that the system is capable of far higher rates. Furthermore our system is not limited in efficiency by channel number, making it ideal for quantum communication applications.

3D beam reconstruction by fluorescence imaging.

We present a technique for mapping the complete 3D spatial intensity profile of a laser beam from its fluorescence in an atomic vapour. We propagate shaped light through a rubidium vapour cell and record the resonant scattering from the side. From a single measurement we obtain a camera limited resolution of 200 × 200 transverse points and 659 longitudinal points. In constrast to invasive methods in which the camera is placed in the beam path, our method is capable of measuring patterns formed by counterpropagating laser beams. It has high resolution in all 3 dimensions, is fast and can be completely automated. The technique has applications in areas which require complex beam shapes, such as optical tweezers, atom trapping and pattern formation.

Trans-spectral orbital angular momentum transfer via four-wave mixing in Rb vapor.

We report the transfer of phase structure and, in particular, of orbital angular momentum from near-infrared pump light to blue light generated in a four-wave-mixing process in 85Rb vapor. The intensity and phase profile of the two pump lasers at 780 and 776 nm, shaped by a spatial light modulator, influences the phase and intensity profile of light at 420 nm, which is generated in a subsequent coherent cascade. In particular, we observe that the phase profile associated with orbital angular momentum is transferred entirely from the pump light to the blue. Pumping with more complicated light profiles results in the excitation of spatial modes in the blue that depend strongly on phase matching, thus demonstrating the parametric nature of the mode transfer. These results have implications on the inscription and storage of phase information in atomic gases.

Entangled optical vortex links.

Optical vortices are lines of phase singularity which percolate through all optical fields. We report the entanglement of linked optical vortex loops in the light produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. As measured by using a Bell inequality, this entanglement between topological features extends over macroscopic and finite volumes. The entanglement of photons in complex three-dimensional topological states suggests the possibility of entanglement of similar features in other quantum systems describable by complex scalar functions, such as superconductors, superfluids, and Bose-Einstein condensates.

Enhanced frequency up-conversion in Rb vapor.

We demonstrate highly efficient generation of coherent 420 nm light via up-conversion of near-infrared lasers in a hot rubidium vapor cell. By optimizing pump polarizations and frequencies we achieve a single-pass conversion efficiency of 260% per Watt, significantly higher than in previous experiments. A full exploration of the coherent light generation and fluorescence as a function of both pump frequencies reveals that coherent blue light is generated close to (85)Rb two-photon resonances, as predicted by theory, but at high vapor pressure is suppressed in spectral regions that do not support phase matching or exhibit single-photon Kerr refraction. Favorable scaling of our current 1 mW blue beam power with additional pump power is predicted.

Holographic ghost imaging and the violation of a Bell inequality.

We demonstrate the contrast enhancement of images within a ghost-imaging system by use of nonlocal phase filters. We use parametric down-conversion as the two-photon light source and two separated phase modulators, in the signal and idler arms which represent different phase filters and objects, respectively. We obtain edge enhanced images as a direct consequence of the quantum correlations in the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of the down-converted photon pairs. For phase objects, with differently orientated edges, we show a violation of a Bell-type inequality for an OAM subspace, thereby unambiguously revealing the quantum nature of our ghost-imaging arrangement.

Violation of a Bell inequality in two-dimensional orbital angular momentum state-spaces.

We observe entanglement between photons in controlled super-position states of orbital angular momentum (OAM). By drawing a direct analogy between OAM and polarization states of light, we demonstrate the entangled nature of high order OAM states generated by spontaneous downconversion through violation of a suitable Clauser Horne Shimony Holt (CHSH)-Bell inequality. We demonstrate this violation in a number of two-dimensional subspaces of the higher dimensional OAM Hilbert space.

"Aether drag" and moving images.

We contrast the two situations in which either a light beam is incident on a moving medium or a moving optical image is incident on a stationary medium. The principle of relativity suggests that the effects on the light of propagating through the medium should be similar. We find, however, that there are subtle differences which we can understand in terms of the relative alignment of the Poynting and wave vectors. Our analysis and experiments investigate both translational motion and rotation.

Optical ferris wheel for ultracold atoms.

We propose a versatile optical ring lattice suitable for trapping cold and quantum degenerate atomic samples. We demonstrate the realisation of intensity patterns from pairs of Laguerre-Gauss (exp(i??) modes with different ? indices. These patterns can be rotated by introducing a frequency shift between the modes. We can generate bright ring lattices for trapping atoms in red-detuned light, and dark ring lattices suitable for trapping atoms with minimal heating in the optical vortices of blue-detuned light. The lattice sites can be joined to form a uniform ring trap, making it ideal for studying persistent currents and the Mott insulator transition in a ring geometry.