Generation of double-charged optical vortices on the basis of electrooptic Kerr effect

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the generation of double-charged optical vortices using the Kerr electrooptic effect across various media and crystal symmetries, providing conditions for optimal vortex creation.

Contribution

It identifies specific crystal symmetry groups suitable for generating double-charged optical vortices via the Kerr effect and formulates the necessary conditions for their formation.

Findings

Double-charged vortices can be generated in multiple media using Kerr effect.

Suitable media belong to specific symmetry groups such as 622, 6mm, and inf/inf/mmm.

Conditions for vortex generation depend on crystal symmetry and Kerr effect parameters.

Abstract

We show that double-charged optical vortices can be generated with the help of Kerr electrooptic effect in either single crystals or isotropic media, including gaseous and liquid ones. We analyze possibilities for the vortex generation via the Kerr effect for different point group of symmetry and formulate the appropriate conditions. We prove that the crystals, textures and the isotropic media most suitable for the generation of double-charged optical vortices should belong to the symmetry groups 622, 6mm, 6/mmm, 6, 6/m, inf/m, inf, inf 2, inf mm, inf/mmm, inf/inf/mmm, and inf/inf2.