Wave-vector and polarization dependence of conical refraction

TL;DR

This paper experimentally investigates how wave-vector and polarization influence conical refraction, revealing that elliptical beams can refract into two beams instead of conically, with models predicting intensity patterns for various beam types.

Contribution

It demonstrates the polarization and wave-vector dependence of conical refraction and provides analytical expressions to predict refracted beam patterns for different input beam configurations.

Findings

Elliptical beams refract into two beams instead of conically.

Expressions are derived to predict the position and intensity of refracted beams.

Double refraction depends on wave-vector and polarization states.

Abstract

We experimentally address the wave-vector and polarization dependence of the internal conical refraction phenomenon by demonstrating that an input light beam of elliptical transverse profile refracts into two beams after passing along one of the optic axes of a biaxial crystal, i.e. it exhibits double refraction instead of refracting conically. Such double refraction is investigated by the independent rotation of a linear polarizer and a cylindrical lens. Expressions to describe the position and the intensity pattern of the refracted beams are presented and applied to predict the intensity pattern for an axicon beam propagating along the optic axis of a biaxial crystal.