Identification of the topological defects of optical indicatrix orientation in CaB4O7 glasses

Abstract

We develop an experimental method for the identification of the topological defects of optical indicatrix orientation, which appear in glass samples with residual mechanical stresses. The criteria needed to determine the sign of the strength of topological defects are formulated. The method is verified on the example of a non-annealed CaB4O7 glass sample that manifests spatially inhomogeneous residual stresses. We have found that at least seven topological defects of optical indicatrix orientation exist under the condition when a light beam propagates through a parallelepiped-shaped glass sample. The strengths of all the defects detected by us are equal to +1/2.