Partially coherent radially polarized fractional vortex beam

A new kind of partially coherent vector beam, named a partially coherent radially polarized fractional vortex (PCRPFV) beam, is introduced as a natural extension of the recently introduced scalar partially coherent fractional vortex beams [Zeng et al., Opt. Express, 26, 26830 (2018)]. Realizability conditions and propagation formulas for a PCRPFV beam are derived. Statistical properties of a focused PCRPFV beam, such as average intensity, degree of polarization, state of polarization and cross-spectral density matrix, are illustrated in detail and compared with that of a partially coherent radially polarized integer vortex beam and a scalar partially coherent fractional vortex beam. It is found that the statistical properties of a PCRPFV beam are qualitatively different from these simpler beam classes and are strongly determined by the vortex phase (i.e., fractional topological charge) and initial coherence width. We demonstrate experimental generation of PCRPFV beams and confirm their behavior. Our results will be useful for the rotating and trapping of particles, the detection of phase objects, and polarization lidar systems. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement