Cargando…
Topologically protected optical polarization singularities in four-dimensional space
Optical singularities play a major role in modern optics and are frequently deployed in structured light, super-resolution microscopy, and holography. While phase singularities are uniquely defined as locations of undefined phase, polarization singularities studied thus far are either partial, i.e.,...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2023
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10275587/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37327327 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh0369 |
Sumario: | Optical singularities play a major role in modern optics and are frequently deployed in structured light, super-resolution microscopy, and holography. While phase singularities are uniquely defined as locations of undefined phase, polarization singularities studied thus far are either partial, i.e., bright points of well-defined polarization, or are unstable for small field perturbations. We demonstrate a complete, topologically protected polarization singularity; it is located in the four-dimensional space spanned by the three spatial dimensions and the wavelength and is created in the focus of a cascaded metasurface-lens system. The field Jacobian plays a key role in the design of such higher-dimensional singularities, which can be extended to multidimensional wave phenomena, and pave the way for unconventional applications in topological photonics and precision sensing. |
---|