Creating polarization singularities with anN-pinhole interferometer

Creating and Controlling Polarization Singularities in Plasmonic Fields

Nanoscale light fields near nanoplasmonic objects can be highly structured and can contain highly-subwavelength features. Here, we present the results of our search for the simplest plasmonic system that contains, and can be used to control, the smallest such optical feature: an optical singularity. Specifically, we study the field around subwavelength holes in a metal film and look for polariz...

Cycle of phase, coherence and polarization singularities in Young's three-pinhole experiment.

It is now well-established that a variety of singularities can be characterized and observed in optical wavefields. It is also known that these phase singularities, polarization singularities and coherence singularities are physically related, but the exact nature of their relationship is still somewhat unclear. We show how a Young-type three-pinhole interference experiment can be used to creat...

Creating Pinhole Cameras and Images with Limited Resources

Polarization Sagnac interferometer with a reflective grating beam splitter.

All-reflective interferometric gravitational-wave detector configurations with a diffraction grating as a power beam splitter have been proposed to reduce thermal lensing. We demonstrate the use of a diffraction grating as a polarization beam splitter in a zero-area polarization Sagnac interferometer.

Hyperspectral imaging with a liquid crystal polarization interferometer.

A novel hyperspectral imaging system has been developed that takes advantage of the tunable path delay between orthogonal polarization states of a liquid crystal variable retarder. The liquid crystal is placed in the optical path of an imaging system and the path delay between the polarization states is varied, causing an interferogram to be generated simultaneously at each pixel. A data set co...