Vortex laser arrays with topological charge control and self-healing of defects

Abstract Geometric arrays of vortices found in various systems owe their regular structure to mutual interactions within a confined system. In optics, such vortex crystals may form spontaneously resonator. Their crystallization is relevant many areas physics, although usefulness limited by the lack control over topology. On other hand, programmable devices like spatial light modulators allow design nearly arbitrary distributions but without any intrinsic evolution. By combining non-Hermitian optics with on-demand topological transformations enabled metasurfaces, we report solid-state laser that generates 10 × actively tunable topologies and non-local coupling dictated array’s The exhibit sharp Bragg diffraction peaks, witnessing coherence charge purity, which spatially resolve whole lattice introducing parallelized analysis technique. structuring at source, enable complex arbitrarily partition orbital angular momentum cavity heal defects, thus realizing robust versatile resonators for applications optics.