Abstract

Helically phased - vortex - optical beams have known a growing interest since the first realization that such beams carry an orbital angular momentum (OAM) [1] L=mħ, in addition to a linear momentum ħk and a Spin-Angular-Momentum S=(+1,0,-1)ħ. This class of beams exhibits a helical wave-front that varies azimuthally in a corkscrew-like manner along the beam’s direction of propagation. Generation of this class of beams is motivated by many advanced applications such as optical handling of microscopic particles and atoms, sub-diffraction microscopy, quantum information processing and transmission...etc [2].

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