Gouy-phase-mediated propagation variations and revivals of transverse structure in vectorially structured light

TL;DR

This paper investigates how fractional Gouy phases influence the propagation, variations, and revivals of transverse structures in vectorially structured light, revealing a mechanism for controlling light's spatial and polarization properties.

Contribution

It uncovers the role of fractional Gouy phases in the evolution of vector modes, providing a new principle for designing propagation-invariant structured light.

Findings

Propagation variations linked to intramodal phase evolution

Revivals of transverse structure due to geometric phase differences

Guidelines for shaping vectorial light with custom propagation properties

Abstract

Exploring the physics and potential applications of vectorially structured light with propagation-invariant transverse structures has benefited many areas of modern optics and photonics. In this paper, we investigate the non-eigen vector modes of paraxial light fields, focusing on the propagation variations and revivals of their transverse structures, including both spatial and polarization structures. We show that the physical mechanism behind the variations and revivals of their transverse structure is linked to the evolution of the intramodal phases between the constituting spatial modes. Such evolution originates from fractional Gouy phases, or rather, Geometric-phase difference between spatial modes with different orders under a same unitary transformation. This underlying principle, provides a general guideline for shaping vectorially structured light with custom propagation-evolution properties, and may also inspire a wide variety of new applications based on structured light.