Arbitrary Cylindrical Vector Beam Generation Using Cross-Polarized Modulation

Due to the spatial non-uniform distribution of polarization, cylindrical vector beam (CVB) shows many superior properties and has drawn many research interests. In this letter, we propose and investigate a cross-polarized modulation method to generate the stable CVBs with arbitrary state on the high-order Poincaré sphere (HOPS). It demonstrates that the CVB can be decomposed into a left-handed and a right-handed circularly polarized vortex beam. Exploiting the polarization sensitivity of spatial light modulators (SLMs), the spatial spiral phases are modulated to the horizontal and vertical parts of the linearly polarized beam to produce the CVB. By manipulating the phase difference between the two orthogonal-polarized components, the CVBs with arbitrary rotation at the equator of HOPS are experimentally obtained. These results indicate that the cross-polarized modulation method may provide a simple and flexible way to generate the CVBs with arbitrary polarization states and high stability.