Pancharatnam-Berry phase optical elements for wavefront shaping in the visible domain: switchable helical modes generation

TL;DR

This paper presents a liquid crystal-based Pancharatnam-Berry phase optical element for visible light that can switch between different helical wavefront modes rapidly, enabling advanced optical information encoding.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, polarization-controlled, switchable wavefront shaping device operating in the visible spectrum using liquid crystal technology.

Findings

Demonstrated fast switching between opposite helical modes.

Achieved multi-state wavefront control through cascading devices.

Potential for versatile polarization-controlled optical components.

Abstract

We report the realization of a Pancharatnam-Berry phase optical element [Z. Bomzon, G. Biener, V. Kleiner, and E. Hasman, Opt. Lett. \textbf{27}, 1141 (2002)] for wavefront shaping working in the visible spectral domain, based on patterned liquid crystal technology. This device generates helical modes of visible light with the possibility of electro-optically switching between opposite helicities by controlling the handedness of the input circular polarization. By cascading this approach, fast switching among multiple wavefront helicities can be achieved, with potential applications to multi-state optical information encoding. The approach demonstrated here can be generalized to other polarization-controlled devices for wavefront shaping, such as switchable lenses, beam-splitters, and holographic elements.