Electrically activated spin-controlled orbital angular momentum multiplexer

Gianluca Ruffato (1, 2) , Etienne Brasselet (3) , Michele Massari (1, 2) , Filippo Romanato (1, 2)

1 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia "Galileo Galilei"
2 Laboratory for Nanofabrication of Nanodevices
3 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

We present and test the integration of a static orbital angular momentum mode multiplexer with a dynamical geometric-phase optical element, enabling on-demand spin-controlled angular momentum multiplexing. A diffractive optic multiplexer fabricated by 3D high-resolution electron beam lithography performs a conformal mapping for the conversion from linear to azimuthal phase gradients. The latter is functionalized by a dynamic spin-orbit add-on that consists of a self-engineered electrically activated liquid crystal optical vortex generator having large clear-aperture and high-resolution. By combining several functionalities based on the optical angular momentum of light in a compact manner, the proposed hybrid device could find applications in next-generation high-dimensional mode switchers and routers based on orbital angular momentum.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Gianluca Ruffato, Etienne Brasselet, Michele Massari, Filippo Romanato. Electrically activated spin-controlled orbital angular momentum multiplexer. Applied Physics Letters, 2018, 113 (1), pp.011109 (1-5). ⟨10.1063/1.5030844⟩. ⟨hal-01845299⟩