Comprehensive quantitative analysis of vector beam states based on vector field reconstruction

We demonstrate a comprehensive quantitative analysis of vector beam states (VBSs) by using a vector field reconstruction (VFR) technique integrating interferometry and imaging polarimetry, where the analysis is given by a cylindrically polarized Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) mode expansion of VBSs. From test examples of cylindrically polarized LG mode beams, we obtain the complex amplitude distributions of VBSs and perform their quantitative evaluations both in radial and azimuthal directions. The results show that we generated (l, p) = (1, 0) LG radially polarized state with a high purity of 98%. We also argue that the cylindrically polarized LG modal decomposition is meaningful for the detail discussion of experimental results, such as analyses of mode purities and mode contaminations. Thus the VFR technique is significant for analyses of polarization structured beams generated by lasers and converters.