Tunable polarization holographic gratings obtained by varying the ratio of intensities of the recording beams

Abstract

Polarization holography has been extensively applied in many fields, such as optical science, metrology, and biochemistry, due to its property of polarization modulation. However, the modulated polarization state of diffracted light corresponds strictly to that of incident light one by one. Here, a kind of tunable polarization holographic grating has been designed in terms of Jones matrices, and intensity-based polarization manipulation has been realized experimentally. The proposed tunable polarization holographic grating is recorded on an azobenzene liquid-crystalline film by a pair of coherent light beams with orthogonal polarization states and asymmetrically controlled intensities. It is found that the diffracted light can be actively manipulated from linearly to circularly polarized based on the light intensity of the recording holographic field when the polarization state of incident light keeps constant. Our work could enrich the field of light manipulation and holography.