We report a high fidelity (>90%) approximation of radial polarization conversion using a birefringent lens. It offers the advantages of low-cost, easy fabrication, alignment robustness and high laser power handling capability.
We demonstrate, for the first time, a scheme that generates radially-polarized light using Goos-Hanchen shift of a cylindrically symmetric Total Internal Reflection. It allows ultra-broadband radial polarization conversion for wavelengths differing >1 micron.
The second-harmonic generation process of a focused laser beam inside a nonlinear crystal is described by the Boyd-Kleinman theory. Calculating the actual conversion efficiency and upconverted power requires the solution of a double integral that is analytically intractable. We provide an expression that predicts the exact gain coefficient within an error margin of less than 2% over several orders of magnitude of the confocal parameter and as a function of the walk-off parameter. Our result allows for readily tuning the beam parameters to optimize the performance of the upconversion process and improve optical system designs.
Femtosecond-scale polarization state conversion is experimentally found in optical response of a plasmonic nanograting by means of time-resolved polarimetry. Simultaneous measurements of the Stokes parameters as a function of time with an averaging time-gate of 130 fs reveal a remarkable alteration of polarization state inside a single fs-pulse reflected from a plasmonic crystal. Time-dependent depolarization is experimentally found and described within an analytical model which predicts the four-fold enhancement of the polarization conversion effect with the use of the narrower gate. The effect is attributed to excitation of time-delayed polarization-sensitive surface plasmons with a highly birefringent Fano-type spectral profile.
A fast, switchable electro-optic radial polarization retarder (EO-RPR) fabricated using the electro-optic ceramic PMN-PT is presented. This EO-RPR is useful for fast, switchable generation of pure cylindrical vector beam. When used together with a pair of half-wave plates, the EO-RPR can change circularly polarized light into any cylindrical vector beam of interest such as radially or azimuthally polarized light. Radially and azimuthally polarized light with purities greater than 95% are generated experimentally. The advantages of using EO-RPR include fast response times, low driving voltage and transparency in a wide spectral range (500 -7000 nm).
We demonstrate a dual-rail optical Raman memory inside a polarization interferometer; this enables us to store polarization-encoded information at GHz bandwidths in a room-temperature atomic ensemble. By performing full process tomography on the system we measure up to 97pm1% process fidelity for the storage and retrieval process. At longer storage times, the process fidelity remains high, despite a loss of efficiency. The fidelity is 86pm4% for 1.5 mu s storage time, which is 5,000 times the pulse duration. Hence high fidelity is combined with a large time-bandwidth product. This high performance, with an experimentally simple setup, demonstrates the suitability of the Raman memory for integration into large-scale quantum networks.