Generation of vector beam with space-variant distribution of both polarization and phase

Opt Lett. 2011 Aug 15;36(16):3179-81. doi: 10.1364/OL.36.003179.

Abstract

We present an idea to generate an arbitrary space-variant vector beam with structured polarization and phase distributions. The vector beams are synthesized from the left- and right-hand polarized light, each carrying different phase distributions. Both the phase and the state of polarization of vector beams can be tailored independently and dynamically by a spatial light modulator.