Generating perfect polarization vortices through encoding liquid-crystal display devices

Perfect polarization vortices (PPVs) are a new kind of vector beam with identical diameters. In this paper, we propose an approach that uses encoded liquid-crystal display devices to generate PPVs and is based on the Fourier transformation of high-order Bessel-Gaussian (BG) beams. The liquid-crystal display device used here is a phase-only liquid-crystal spatial light modulator (SLM). In the experiment, a hologram consists of a holographic axicon, and a spiral phase plate is encoded on a SLM to generate high-order BG beams. Then, another SLM and a convex lens can realize the transformation from BG beams into PPVs. We analyze the diameter of the PPV obtained by our approach, and find it is impacted by the focal length of the lens as well as the period of the holographic axicon, but is little influenced by polarization order. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America.