Abstract

We demonstrated by means of interferometry that optical vortices can be generated by diffraction of a laser beam from a birefringent nematic liquid crystal that spontaneously creates a periodic array of electro-convective domains and edge dislocations under an applied electric field. The diffracted beam of order m produced by an elementary dislocation comprises a number $|\mathrm{m}|$ of distinct optical vortices, each with unit topological charge. Birefringent liquid crystal arrays provide a fast, convenient, and promising way of generating and studying optical vortices. The used materials are inexpensive, fabrication processes are simple, and both input polarization and applied field can be used as external controls to switch the optical vortices on and off.

© 2018 Optical Society of America

Optical vortices generated by dislocations in a cholesteric liquid crystal

D. Voloschenko and O. D. Lavrentovich
Opt. Lett. 25(5) 317-319 (2000)

Algebra of optical dislocations with plasmonic nanostructures

Pasha Goz, Andre Yaroshevsky, and Yuri Gorodetski
Opt. Lett. 49(10) 2709-2712 (2024)

Thermo-optic soliton routing in nematic liquid crystals

Urszula A. Laudyn, Armando Piccardi, Michal Kwasny, Mirosław A. Karpierz, and Gaetano Assanto
Opt. Lett. 43(10) 2296-2299 (2018)

Fabrication of optical vortex lattices based on holographic polymer-dispersed liquid crystal films

Andy Ying Guey Fuh, Yi-Lin Tsai, Ching-Han Yang, and Shing Trong Wu
Opt. Lett. 43(1) 154-157 (2018)

Seeing infrared optical vortex arrays with a nonlinear spiral phase filter

Fei Lin, Xiaodong Qiu, Wuhong Zhang, and Lixiang Chen
Opt. Lett. 44(9) 2298-2301 (2019)