Optical Vortex Transmutation with Geometric Metasurfaces of Rotational Symmetry Breaking
Abstract
The free‐space optical vortex transmutation is realized by using geometric plasmonic metasurfaces with the designed noncanonical vortex phase profiles possessing discrete rotational symmetries of finite order. Based on the introduced continuous‐to‐discrete rotational symmetry breaking in metasurfaces, the vortex transmutation phenomena are observed behind the metasurfaces from the near‐field to far‐field diffraction in free space. The near‐field optical beam profile represents the input vortex, while in the far field the input vortex is diffracted into the central output vortex with topological charge determined by the transmutation rule and the symmetrically distributed off‐axis vortices with unity topological charge bifurcating from the input vortex, with the total orbital angular momentum conserved. The demonstrated free‐space optical vortex transformation will promise many potential applications related to optical communication, particle manipulation, and quantum information processing.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Aug 23, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1002/adom.201901152
Entities
People
- Jie Gao
- Xiaodong Yang
- Yuchao Zhang
Organizations
- Missouri University of Science and Technology
- National Science Foundation
- Office of Naval Research