Generation of vector beam with space-variant distribution of both polarization and phase

We present an idea to generate an arbitrary space-variant vector beam with structured polarization and phase distributions. The vector beams are synthesized from the left-and right-hand polarized light, each carrying different phase distributions. Both the phase and the state of polarization of vector beams can be tailored independently and dynamically by a spatial light modulator. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America