Novel metrics for vector beams Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • Vector beams feature inhomogeneous polarization structures and have sparked significant attention in recent years. While a lot of effort has been dedicated to their generation and control, measures to quantify their vectorness are less developed. This is particularly critical for beams whose polarization distribution changes upon propagation, for which classical descriptors are not enough. Here, we describe established vectorness metrics, highlighting their advantages and limitations, as a motivation for our efforts in developing novel approaches to expand the toolkit for characterizing vector beams. We then introduce our proposed measures, presenting the pertinent theoretical background as well as experiments showing their relevance in key examples.

publication date

  • January 1, 2023