TY - JOUR
T1 - Multi-twist polarization ribbon topologies in highly-confined optical fields
AU - Bauer, Thomas
AU - Banzer, Peter
AU - Bouchard, Frédéric
AU - Orlov, Sergej
AU - Marrucci, Lorenzo
AU - Santamato, Enrico
AU - Boyd, Robert W.
AU - Karimi, Ebrahim
AU - Leuchs, Gerd
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Electromagnetic plane waves, solutions to Maxwell's equations, are said to be 'transverse' in vacuum. Namely, the waves' oscillatory electric and magnetic fields are confined within a plane transverse to the waves' propagation direction. Under tight-focusing conditions however, the field can exhibit longitudinal electric or magnetic components, transverse spin angular momentum, or non-trivial topologies such as Möbius strips. Here, we show that when a suitably spatially structured beam is tightly focused, a three-dimensional polarization topology in the form of a ribbon with two full twists appears in the focal volume. We study experimentally the stability and dynamics of the observed polarization ribbon by exploring its topological structure for various radii upon focusing and for different propagation planes.
AB - Electromagnetic plane waves, solutions to Maxwell's equations, are said to be 'transverse' in vacuum. Namely, the waves' oscillatory electric and magnetic fields are confined within a plane transverse to the waves' propagation direction. Under tight-focusing conditions however, the field can exhibit longitudinal electric or magnetic components, transverse spin angular momentum, or non-trivial topologies such as Möbius strips. Here, we show that when a suitably spatially structured beam is tightly focused, a three-dimensional polarization topology in the form of a ribbon with two full twists appears in the focal volume. We study experimentally the stability and dynamics of the observed polarization ribbon by exploring its topological structure for various radii upon focusing and for different propagation planes.
KW - polarization topology
KW - Ribbon topology
KW - tight-focusing beams
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069498386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1088/1367-2630/ab171b
DO - 10.1088/1367-2630/ab171b
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85069498386
SN - 1367-2630
VL - 21
JO - New Journal of Physics
JF - New Journal of Physics
IS - 5
M1 - 053020
ER -