Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Jun 20;7(1):3891.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-04373-6.

Terahertz circular Airy vortex beams

Changming Liu  1 , Jinsong Liu  2 , Liting Niu  1 , Xuli Wei  1 , Kejia Wang  1 , Zhengang Yang  1
Affiliations

Terahertz circular Airy vortex beams

Changming Liu et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Vortex beams have received considerable research interests both in optical and millimeter-wave domain since its potential to be utilized in the wireless communications and novel imaging systems. Many well-known optical beams have been demonstrated to carry orbital angular momentum (OAM), such as Laguerre-Gaussian beams and high-order Bessel beams. Recently, the radially symmetric Airy beams that exhibit an abruptly autofocusing feature are also demonstrated to be capable of carrying OAM in the optical domain. However, due to the lack of efficient devices to manipulate terahertz (THz) beams, it could be a challenge to demonstrate the radially symmetric Airy beams in the THz domain. Here we demonstrate the THz circular Airy vortex beams (CAVBs) with a 0.3-THz continuous wave through 3D printing technology. Assisted by the rapidly 3D-printed phase plates, individual OAM states with topological charge l ranging from l = 0 to l = 3 and a multiplexed OAM state are successfully imposed into the radially symmetric Airy beams. We both numerically and experimentally investigate the propagation dynamics of the generated THz CAVBs, and the simulations agree well with the observations.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic diagram of the experimental setup for generating THz CAVBs. Transmitter: A 0.3-THz radiation source coupled with a diagonal horn antenna. Chopper: Optical chopper. HDPE lens: High-density polyethylene lens. Receiver: Schotkky diode coupled with a diagonal horn antenna. Component1 (R1): the first phase plate; Component2 (R2): the second phase plate. (a) The 3D-printed R1 used in the experiment. (b) The 3D-printed R2. (c) The xy normalized intensity profile of the collimated Gaussian beam at the front plane of R1, showing a diameter of 17 mm (measured at FWHM, full width at half maximum).
Figure 2
Figure 2
The height profiles of the diffractive phase plates. The CAD models (top row) and the photos (bottom row) of (a) The first phase plates (R1) and (b) The second phase plate (R2). The parameter α = 8.7266 × 10−4, β = 9.5155. The diameter and the maximum height of these plates are 76.2 mm and 3.53 mm, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The propagation dynamics of the generated THz CAVBs with individual OAM states ranging from l = 0 to l = 3. The normalized intensity profiles of (a) the experimental results and (b) the simulated results for generating THz CAVBs. The first row: intensity profiles in the xz-plane (y = 0 mm); the second row: intensity profiles in the xy-plane (z = 0 mm); the third row: intensity profiles in the xy-plane (y = 100 mm).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Detailed investigations for generating the THz CAVBs with individual OAM states ranging from l = 0 to l = 3. (a) The 1D normalized intensity curves locates at z = 0 mm, y = 0 mm. (b) The 1D normalized intensity curves locates at z = 100 mm, y = 0 mm. (c) The maximum intensity distribution of THz CAVBs with l ranging from l = 0 to l = 3 along the propagation direction (z-axis). (d) The ring diameter of the THz CAVBs with l ranging from l = 1 to l = 3 along z-axis. (e) The interference patterns of the THz CAVBs and a tilted Gaussian beam. Exp: Experiment, Sim: Simulation.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The propagation dynamics and the multiplexing of the multiplexed THz CAVB with l = 1&3. (a)–(e) The xy normalized intensity profiles of the multiplexed THz CAVB at the position of z = 0 mm, z = 50 mm, z = 100 mm, z = 150 mm and z = 200 mm. (f) The measured intensity profile of the multiplexed THz CAVB with l = 1&3. (g)–(j) The measured intensity profiles of the THz CAVBs with individual OAM mode ranging from l = 0 to l = 3.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Allen L, Beijersbergen MW, Spreeuw RJC, Woerdman JP. Orbital angular momentum of light and the transformation of Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes. Phys. Rev. A. 1992;45:8185–8189. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.45.8185. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bozinovic N, et al. Terabit-scale orbital angular momentum mode division multiplexing in fibers. Science. 2013;340:1545–1548. doi: 10.1126/science.1237861. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Gibson G, et al. Free-space information transfer using light beams carrying orbital angular momentum. Opt. Express. 2004;12:5448–5456. doi: 10.1364/OPEX.12.005448. - DOI - PubMed
    1. He H, Friese ME, Heckenberg NR, Rubinsztein-Dunlop H. Direct observation of transfer of angular momentum to absorptive particles from a laser beam with a phase singularity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 1995;75:826–829. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.826. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Vaziri A, Weihs G, Zeilinger A. Experimental two-photon, three-dimensional entanglement for quantum communication. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2002;89:240401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.240401. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
3d 4
HOME 2
Javascript 1
mac 2
os 12
text 12
twitter 2
web 4