Peering into darkness with a vortex spatial filter

Abstract

I propose to use as a window the dark core of an optical vortex to examine a weak background signal hidden in the glare of a bright coherent source. Applications such as the detection of an astronomical object, forward-scattered radiation, and incoherent light are described whereby signal enhancements of at least 7 orders of magnitude may be achieved.

© 2001 Optical Society of America

Optical vortex coronagraph

Gregory Foo, David M. Palacios, and Grover A. Swartzlander
Opt. Lett. 30(24) 3308-3310 (2005)

Stabilization of dark and vortex parametric spatial solitons

Tristram J. Alexander, Alexander V. Buryak, and Yuri S. Kivshar
Opt. Lett. 23(9) 670-672 (1998)

Vortex revivals with trapped light

Gabriel Molina-Terriza, Lluis Torner, Ewan M. Wright, Juan J. García-Ripoll, and Víctor M. Pérez-García
Opt. Lett. 26(20) 1601-1603 (2001)

Spatial coherence and information entropy in optical vortex fields

G. S. Agarwal and J. Banerji
Opt. Lett. 27(10) 800-802 (2002)

Dark and bright photovoltaic spatial solitons in photorefractive crystals with positive refractive-index perturbation

W. L. She, C. W. Chan, and W. K. Lee
Opt. Lett. 26(14) 1093-1095 (2001)