Generation of helical Ince-Gaussian beams with a liquid-crystal display.
We generate helical Ince-Gaussian (HIG) beams by using complex amplitude and phase masks encoded onto a liquid-crystal display (LCD). These beams display an intensity pattern consisting of elliptic rings, whose number and ellipticity can be controlled, and a phase exhibiting a number of in-line vortices, each with a unitary topological charge. We show experimental results that display the properties of these elliptic dark hollow beams. We introduce a novel interference technique for generating the object and reference beams by using a single LCD and show the vortex interference patterns. We expect that these HIG beams will be useful in optical trapping applications.
Department of Physics, San Diego State University, San Diego, California 92182-1233, USA.
Joel B
JB
Bentley
Jeffrey A
JA
Davis
Miguel A
MA
Bandres
Julio C
JC
Gutiérrez-Vega