This article describes an experimental study of the optical vortex generation with the use of light that was reflected from the combination of two cube-corner reflectors (retroreflectors) and its analysis in far field. The main goal of our research was to confirm the theoretical data from the article. Shearing interferometer was used for optical vortex detection and analysis. Our previous studies were focused on cases with linear polarization forming a polarization vortex. This time we were using light circular polarization to produce an optical vortex with m=2.
The work is dedicated to the analysis of spatial energy characteristics of geodetic passive glass satellites of the BLITS type for high-precision laser ranging. The article covers principles of calculation of a retroreflector spherical system (RSS), which appears to be a set of concentric layers with different refractive indices. The peculiarity of the performed analysis allows for the specifics of the RSS space application requires maximum reflected power towards the receiver determined by the phenomenon of light velocity aberration. The reflected coherent laser radiation produced by the RSS in the far zone has been analyzed using the Zemax program. An equation is derived to estimate the spatial energy characteristic (cross-section) of the BLITS-type satellites. The authors introduce the concept of an effective diameter for the output beam, which generates a far-field diffraction pattern.
This article describes an experimental study of the optical vortex formation using beams reflected from a combination of two cube-corner reflectors with a special interference phase-shifting coating. As predicted earlier, if arranged properly, these cube-corner reflectors create a spatial polarization structure, that can be called an optical vortex, since the plane of oscillations of thе vector E rotates with azimuth variation in the transverse plane. Our previous studies concluded that such configuration works as intended, however only near-field images were obtained. This time we preset experimental results in the far field.
Consideration is given to the basic properties and characteristics of optical vortices (OV) featuring a helical phase structure combined with axisymmetric polarization structure. Correlation between polarization-symmetric beams and OV is analyzed. Based on the Jones formalized matrices, it is shown how axisymmetric polarization structure is generated when an optical vortex passes through spiral optical elements: polarizer and phase plate. It is shown that the polarization-optical system consisting of two cube-corner reflectors with a special phase-correction coating to ensure a certain phase shift between electric vector components is equivalent to a spiral two-order rotator, which provides an optical vortex from a circular-polarization wave.
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