Wavefront rotator with near-zero mean polarization change

Abstract

A K-mirror is a device that rotates the wavefront of an incident optical field. It has recently gained prominence over the Dove prism, another commonly used wavefront rotator, due to the fact that while a K-mirror has several controls for adjusting the internal reflections, a Dove prism is made of a single glass element with no additional control. Thus, one can obtain much lower angular deviations of transmitting wavefronts using a K-mirror than with a Dove prism. However, the accompanying polarization changes in the transmitted field due to rotation persist even in the commercially available K-mirrors. A recent theoretical work [Appl. Opt. 61, 8302 (2022)APOPAI0003-693510.1364/AO.472543] shows that it is possible to optimize the base angle of a K-mirror for a given refractive index such that the accompanying polarization changes are minimum. In contrast, we show in this paper that by optimizing the refractive index it is possible to design a K-mirror at any given base angle and with any given value for the mean polarization change, including near-zero values. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate a K-mirror with an order-of-magnitude lower mean polarization change than that of the commercially available K-mirrors. This can have important practical implications for OAM-based applications that require precise wavefront rotation control.