Modeling of the optical vortex generation using a silver spiral zone plate

Abstract

Using a FDTD-method implemented in the FullWAVE (RSoft) software, a process of generating optical vortices during the propagation of a left- or right-hand circularly polarized Gaussian pulse through a phase and amplitude spiral zone plate with topological charge 2, a diameter of 8 μm, and a focal length of 532 nm is numerically modeled. An investigation of the amplitude and phase distributions in the focal plane shows the presence of optical vortices with topological charge 2. Analysis of the longitudinal component of the Umov-Poynting vector shows the presence of an inverse energy flow in the focal plane. In the case of using an amplitude spiral zone plate, the magnitude of the reverse flow decreases sharply until it disappears completely for the left circularly polarized incident beams.