Cylindrically Symmetric Vector Beams Obtained by Overlapping Optical Vortices

In recent years, cylindrically symmetric vector beams are widely used in many fields, such as high-resolution microscopy, micro printing and nonlinear optics et al. The intensity and polarization of cylindrically symmetric vector beams are symmetrical around the optical axis. Radially polarized beam and azimuthally polarized beam are the most common cylindrically symmetric vector beams. In this paper, first by using numerical methods it is calculated that the cylindrically symmetric vector beams can be obtained by overlapping two optical vortices or by overlapping an optical vortices with topological charge of two and a plane wave. Then, a radially polarized beam and azimuthally polarized beam were experimentally obtained by overlapping a right-circularly polarized plane light and a left-circularly polarized optical vortices with topological charge of two, which is obtained by using a reflective liquid crystal spatial light modulator (SLM) and a quarter-wave plate. The experimental results show that, by using this method, different kinds of cylindricany symmetric vector beams can be obtained very simply and easily, and could be switched to each other at video rate, and has higher energy conversion efficiency (up to 60%).