Tailoring polarization singularity lattices by phase engineering of three-beam interference

Abstract

Structured optical lattices obtained from interference of three linearly polarized plane waves arranged in a cone geometry produce interlaced polarization singularity structures. These lattices are known to be populated with both C-point and V-point singularities. All the lattice fields abide by the principle of index conservation. In this article, we focused on tailoring these polarization singularity lattices by perturbing the interfering beams with a relative encoded phase. We have shown that a spatial lateral-shifting of the ellipse- and vector field singularities by an order of lattice parameter can be achieved through an appropriate phase engineered design. Similar phase engineering in six and eight beam interference method of lattice generation produces different results. In six and eight beam interference, phase engineering enables realization of C-point only lattices and provides handedness control for the ellipse field singularities, whereas in three beam interference case, there is only a translation shift in the lattice structure.