Few-cycle vortex wavepackets with tunable topological charge

The control of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of ultrashort laser pulses with highly compact, low-dispersion and flexible devices opens new prospects for momentum-sensitive applications in plasmonics, materials processing, biochemistry, microscopy or optical data transfer. We report on the generation of few-cycle vortex pulses of variable topological charge from a Ti:sapphire laser oscillator with novel types of thermally tunable reflective, spiral-phase micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). The spatial and temporal properties of the pulses were characterized by a reconfigurable, nondiffracting Shack-Hartmann wavefront autocorrelator. The intensity propagation can be described by a Laguerre-Gaussian beam with slight distortions caused by the line of maximum phase step. The different topological charges were indicated by quantitatively comparing the lengths of measured transversal Poynting-vector components to corresponding numerical simulations.

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