Abstract

Polarization singularities are shown to be unavoidable features of three-dimensional optical lattices. These singularities take the form of lines of circular polarization, C lines, and lines of linear polarization, L lines. The polarization figures surrounding a C line (L line) rotate about the line with winding number $\pm 1/2$ ($\pm 1$). C and L lines permeate the lattice, meander throughout the unit cell, and form closed loops. Surprisingly, every point in a linearly polarized optical lattice is found to be a singularity about which the surrounding polarization vectors rotate with an integer winding number.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

Polarization singularity democracy: WYSIWYG

Isaac Freund
Opt. Lett. 29(15) 1715-1717 (2004)

Emergent polarization singularities

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Polarization singularity proliferation in three-dimensional ellipse fields

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Second-harmonic generation of polarization singularities

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