Seeing full vectorial structures of light fields with a single-shot holographic multiplexed detector

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel single-shot holographic multiplexed detector capable of capturing the full vectorial structure of light, including amplitude, phase, and polarization, from a single intensity measurement.

Contribution

The authors develop and experimentally validate a compact holographic detector that retrieves complete vectorial light information without multiple measurements or bulky optics.

Findings

Successfully characterizes polarization structures of vectorial light beams.

Recovers complex wavefronts in two polarization channels without extra measurements.

Enables real-time vectorial metrology and dynamic structured light applications.

Abstract

The vectorial structure of light, amplitude, phase, and polarization, encodes essential information for applications ranging from super-resolution microscopy to high-capacity communications and quantum information processing. However, existing characterization methods either rely on multiple sequential measurements or require bulky polarization splitting optics in the signal path. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a single shot holographic multiplexed detector that retrieves the full vectorial information from a single intensity recording. Two orthogonally polarized reference beams with distinct off axis carriers interfere with the unknown vectorial light field, encoding both polarization channels into one off axis hologram. Digital holographic reconstruction combined with a self calibrated global phase retrieval recovers the complex wavefronts in the two channels without any additional measurements. We validate our approach by characterizing the polarization structures and concurrence of various vectorial structured light beams on a higher order Poincare sphere (l=2). This compact, efficient detector may open new routes for real time vectorial metrology in light matter interaction, chiral sensing, vectorial adaptive optics, and dynamic structured light applications.