Conversion of cylindrical vector beams on the higher-order Poincar sphere

Abstract

A conversion approach for cylindrical vector beams on the high-order Poincar sphere based on half-wave plate is studied theoretically and experimentally in this paper. The theoretical analysis using the Jones matrix method shows that the latitudes of two corresponding points produced by the cylindrical vector beams on the high-order Poincar sphere before and after conversion are situated oppositely, and the longitudes are changed with different azimuth angles of the half-wave plate. Finally, an experimental system for the generation and conversion of the cylindrical vector beams is established with the spatial light modulator, and the experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.