A wavefront rotator with near-zero mean polarization change

TL;DR

This paper presents an optimized K-mirror design that achieves near-zero mean polarization change, significantly improving wavefront rotation control for optical applications, especially in OAM-based systems.

Contribution

It introduces a method to optimize the refractive index of a K-mirror for any base angle to minimize polarization changes, including near-zero values, and demonstrates this experimentally.

Findings

Achieved an order-of-magnitude reduction in polarization change compared to commercial K-mirrors.

Validated the optimization method through experimental demonstration.

Enhanced wavefront rotation precision for OAM applications.

Abstract

A K-mirror is a device that rotates the wavefront of an incident optical field. It has recently gained prominence over Dove prism, another commonly used wavefront rotator, due to the fact that while a K-mirror has several controls for adjusting the internal reflections, a Dove prism is made of a single glass element with no additional control. Thus, one can obtain much lower angular deviations of transmitting wavefronts using a K-mirror than with a Dove prism. However, the accompanying polarization changes in the transmitted field due to rotation persist even in the commercially available K-mirrors. A recent theoretical work [Applied Optics, 61, 8302 (2022)] shows that it is possible to optimize the base angle of a K-mirror for a given refractive index such that the accompanying polarization changes are minimum. In contrast, we show in this article that by optimizing the refractive index it is possible to design a K-mirror at any given base angle and with any given value for the mean polarization change, including near-zero values. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate a K-mirror with an order-of-magnitude lower mean polarization change than that of the commercially available K-mirrors. This can have important practical implications for OAM-based applications that require precise wavefront rotation control.