Realization of polarization evolution on higher-order Poincare sphere with metasurface

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple method using inhomogeneous birefringent metasurfaces to generate cylindrical vector beams and control their polarization evolution on the higher-order Poincare sphere, with potential applications in information encoding and quantum computing.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate a novel approach to produce and manipulate cylindrical vector beams using metasurfaces, enabling flexible polarization control on the higher-order Poincare sphere.

Findings

The method accurately converts homogeneous elliptical polarization into desired vector beams.

Experimental measurements of Stokes parameters agree with theoretical predictions.

Potential for applications in encoding information and quantum computation.

Abstract

We present a simple and convenient method to yield cylindrical vector (CV) beams and realize its polarization evolution on higher-order Poincare sphere based on inhomogeneous birefringent metasurface. By means of local polarization transformation of the metasurface, it is possible to convert a light beam with homogeneous elliptical polarization into a vector beam with any desired polarization distribution. The Stokes parameters of the output light are measured to verify our scheme, which show well agreement with the theoretical prediction. Our method may provide a convenient way to generate CV beams, which is expected to have potential applications in encoding information and quantum computation.