Creation and Control of Vortex‐Beam Arrays in Atomic Vapor

Abstract

AbstractOptical vortices, which are beams with spiral‐shaped wavefronts and screw phase dislocations, have potential for supporting high‐capacity optical communications. In this study, the generation of 1D and 2D vortex‐beam arrays is theoretically proposed and experimentally demonstrated by introducing novel forked‐photonic lattices in a three‐level 85Rb atomic medium. Such forked‐photonic lattices are established through the interference of Gaussian and vortex coupling beams. The input Gaussian probe beam that travels through this lattice experiences phase superposition and is diffracted into vortex‐beam arrays. Moreover, the relative efficiency of the high‐order diffractions can be enhanced by tuning the two‐photon detuning and power of the coupling beams. The enriched diffractive arrays of a vortex probe beam propagating in such forked‐photonic lattices are also presented. The experimental results agree well with those of the numerical simulations. This work suggests that atomic systems are a fertile platform for creating and controlling vortex‐beam arrays, and that they can shed light on ongoing exploration in the fields of optical manipulation and quantum information processing.