Sculptured 3D twister superlattices embedded with tunable vortex spirals

We present diverse reconfigurable complex 3D twister vortex superlattice structures in a large area embedded with tunable vortex spirals as well as dark rings, threaded by vortex helices. We demonstrate these tunable complex chiral vortex superlattices by the superposition of relatively phase engineered plane waves. The generated complex 3D twister lattice vortex structures are computationally as well as experimentally analyzed using various tools to verify the presence of phase singularities. Our observation indicates the application-specific flexibility of our approach to tailor the transverse superlattice spatial irradiance profile of these longitudinally whirling vortex-cluster units and dark rings. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America