Research article

Structuring light sorter based on a cylindrically anisotropic spherulite prism

State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China

* e-mail: shyang_mse@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn;
** e-mail: jingbosun@tsinghua.edu.cn;
*** e-mail:zhouji@tsinghua.edu.cn
^a These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received: 30 September 2023
Accepted: 4 January 2024
Published online: 9 February 2024

Abstract

Structured light plays an important role in modern optical technologies, such as the high capacity communication and particle manipulation. In this paper, we design and experimentally demonstrate a patterned wedge-shaped liquid crystal prism, which is capable of sorting structured light of different vector polarizations and orbital angular momenta from a circularly polarized light. Mimicking the design of the metamaterials, the molecules inside the liquid crystal are intensively aligned azimuthally to form a spherulite with cylindrically anisotropic optical indices. Together with the wedged shape, a circularly polarized beam transmitting through the prism may experience a strong birefringence and is thus sorted into two optical vortex beams with radial and azimuthal polarizations. These results contribute to the advanced complex light manipulation, paving the way to realize the simultaneous control of light's polarization and orbital angular momentum in a compact and efficient way.