Independently detect the spiral phase of cylindrical vector vortex beams

Abstract

Although lots of research works have devoted to the generation of cylindrical vector vortex (CVV) beam, little attention has been paid to the detection work. Here, we have experimentally demonstrated a novel detection method to measure the helical topological charge of CVV beams at the working wavelength of 1550nm. The polarization order of CVV beams was firstly measured by using a polarizer. And the topological charge of RHC and LHC were measured by interfering with the plane wave. Then the topological charges of CVV beams were successfully calculated. Experimental results match well with the theoretical prediction and this might provides an efficient measurement technique for detecting the spiral phase of CVV beams.