Naidoo, DarrylRoux, Filippus SDudley, Angela LLitvin, IgorPiccirillo, BMarrucci, LForbes, A2017-06-072017-06-072016-03Naidoo, D., Roux, F.S., Dudley, A.L. et al. 2016. Controlled generation of higher-order Poincaré sphere beams from a laser. Nature Photonics, vol. 10: 327-332. doi:10.1038/nphoton.2016.371749-4885doi:10.1038/nphoton.2016.37http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v10/n5/full/nphoton.2016.37.htmlhttp://hdl.handle.net/10204/9242Copyright: 2016 Nature Publishing Group. Due to copyright restrictions, the attached PDF file only contains the abstract of the full text item. For access to the full text item, kindly consult the publisher's website.The angular momentum of light can be described by positions on a higher-order Poincaré sphere, where superpositions of spin and orbital angular momentum states give rise to laser beams that have many applications, from microscopy to materials processing. Many techniques exist to create such beams but none so far allow their creation at the source. Here we report on a new class of laser that is able to generate all states on the higher-order Poincaré sphere. We exploit geometric phase control inside a laser cavity to map polarization to orbital angular momentum, demonstrating that the orbital angular momentum degeneracy of a standard laser cavity may be broken, producing pure orbital angular momentum beams, and that generalized vector vortex beams may be created with high purity at the source. This work paves the way to new lasers for structured light based on intracavity geometric phase control.enLiquid crystalsOptical physicsSolid-state lasersArticleNaidoo, D., Roux, F. S., Dudley, A. L., Litvin, I., Piccirillo, B., Marrucci, L., & Forbes, A. (2016). Controlled generation of higher-order Poincaré sphere beams from a laser. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9242Naidoo, Darryl, Filippus S Roux, Angela L Dudley, Igor Litvin, B Piccirillo, L Marrucci, and A Forbes "Controlled generation of higher-order Poincaré sphere beams from a laser." (2016) http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9242Naidoo D, Roux FS, Dudley AL, Litvin I, Piccirillo B, Marrucci L, et al. Controlled generation of higher-order Poincaré sphere beams from a laser. 2016; http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9242.TY - Article AU - Naidoo, Darryl AU - Roux, Filippus S AU - Dudley, Angela L AU - Litvin, Igor AU - Piccirillo, B AU - Marrucci, L AU - Forbes, A AB - The angular momentum of light can be described by positions on a higher-order Poincaré sphere, where superpositions of spin and orbital angular momentum states give rise to laser beams that have many applications, from microscopy to materials processing. Many techniques exist to create such beams but none so far allow their creation at the source. Here we report on a new class of laser that is able to generate all states on the higher-order Poincaré sphere. We exploit geometric phase control inside a laser cavity to map polarization to orbital angular momentum, demonstrating that the orbital angular momentum degeneracy of a standard laser cavity may be broken, producing pure orbital angular momentum beams, and that generalized vector vortex beams may be created with high purity at the source. This work paves the way to new lasers for structured light based on intracavity geometric phase control. DA - 2016-03 DB - ResearchSpace DP - CSIR KW - Liquid crystals KW - Optical physics KW - Solid-state lasers LK - https://researchspace.csir.co.za PY - 2016 SM - 1749-4885 T1 - Controlled generation of higher-order Poincaré sphere beams from a laser TI - Controlled generation of higher-order Poincaré sphere beams from a laser UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9242 ER -