Generation of optical toroidal vortex with circular asymmetric gratings

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel circular asymmetric grating to generate optical toroidal vortices, enabling new possibilities in optical topology and high-dimensional communications.

Contribution

The work introduces a compact device that transforms cylindrical vector waves into toroidal vortex pulses, advancing optical vortex generation techniques.

Findings

Successful generation of optical toroidal vortices

Potential applications in optical topology and communications

Compact design for practical implementation

Abstract

Toroidal vortex, a topological structure commonly observed in nature, exist in various types such as bubbles produced by dolphins and the air flow surrounding a flying dandelion. A toroidal vortex corresponds to a spatiotemporal wave packet in the shape of a donut that propagates in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the ring. In this work, we propose a circular asymmetric grating to generate vortex rings. A cylindrical vector wave packet is transformed by the device into a transmitted toroidal vortex pulse. Such a compact toroidal vortex generator may find applications in optical topology research and high-dimensional optical communications.