Paper A72

Far-field pattern formation by manipulating the topological charges of square-shaped optical vortex lattices

L. Stoyanov, G. Maleshkov, M. Zhekova, I. Stefanov, D. N. Neshev, G. G. Paulus, and A. Dreischuh

 

Abstract.

In this work, we demonstrate experimentally the formation of 10 different structures consisting of bright beams with flat phase fronts in the focus of a lens (i.e., in the artificial far field). The basic structure used is a large, stable, square-shaped optical vortex (OV) array composed of vortices with alternating topological charges (TCs). The TCs of one individual OV, of a subarray of OVs, or of the complete OV lattice were erased/doubled in the cases of perfect superposition (on-site alignment) or are manipulated in phase in the cases of an offset between the vortices (off-site alignment). A dramatic reshaping of the beam is observed in the far field and shown to be in excellent agreement with numerical simulations.