Broadband negative group velocity dispersion in all-dielectric metamaterial and its role in supercontinuum generation.

All-dielectric metamaterials conforming to an optical reflectionless potential (ORP) offer broadband, omni-directional suppression of reflection. Though they are predicted to possess broadband negative group velocity dispersion (GVD), ultrashort pulse propagation through such materials has not been studied so far, to the best of our knowledge. In this work, we demonstrate negative GVD and group delay dispersion over broadband covering visible to near-infrared wavelengths.

Direct transfer of pump amplitude to parametric down-converted photons.

In general, the spatial distribution of individual photons (signal or idler) generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) does not evidently show any particular spatial mode structure because of their randomness in generation and the incoherent nature. Here, we numerically showed that all individual photons generated by the SPDC process carry the transverse amplitude as that of the pump and then confirmed it experimentally. The pump amplitude is revealed in SPDC when individual photons are spatially filtered from the total SPDC distribution.

Airy beam optical parametric oscillator.

Airy beam, a non-diffracting waveform, has peculiar properties of self-healing and self-acceleration. Due to such unique properties, the Airy beam finds many applications including curved plasma wave-guiding, micro-particle manipulation, optically mediated particle clearing, long distance communication, and nonlinear frequency conversion. However, many of these applications including laser machining of curved structures, generation of curved plasma channels, guiding of electric discharges in a curved path, study of nonlinear propagation dynamics, and nonlinear interaction demand Airy beam with high power, energy, and wavelength tunability.

Non-coaxial superposition of vector vortex beams.

Vector vortex beams are classified into four types depending upon spatial variation in their polarization vector. We have generated all four of these types of vector vortex beams by using a modified polarization Sagnac interferometer with a vortex lens. Further, we have studied the non-coaxial superposition of two vector vortex beams.

Perfect vortex beam: Fourier transformation of a Bessel beam.

We derive a mathematical description of a perfect vortex beam as the Fourier transformation of a Bessel beam. Building on this development, we experimentally generate Bessel-Gauss beams of different orders and Fourier transform them to form perfect vortex beams. By controlling the radial wave vector of a Bessel-Gauss beam, we can control the ring radius of the generated beam.

Design, fabrication and validation of an OAM fiber supporting 36 states.

We present an optical fiber supporting 36 information bearing orbital angular momentum (OAM) states spanning 9 OAM orders. We introduce design techniques to maximize the number of OAM modes supported in the fiber; while avoiding LP mode excitation. We fabricate such a fiber with an air core and an annular index profile using the MCVD process.

Formation of optical vortices through superposition of two Gaussian beams.

We observe phase singularities in the superposed field of two Gaussian beams. It is seen that the formation of these singularities depends on the tilt between two Gaussian beams and the separation of their beam axes. By reversing the angle or the position of the beams, one can change the sign of the vortex.

Topological charge dependent propagation of optical vortices under quadratic phase transformation.

We make optical vortices of different topological charge and diffract them through a quadratic phase mask using the same spatial light modulator. This phase mask shows the diffraction in which the positive diffracted order has different dynamics than the negative diffracted order. The diffraction pattern and its orientation depend on the charge of the vortex as well as its sign.

Self-healing property of optical ring lattice.

We generate experimentally optical ring lattice structures which are the superposition of two coaxial Laguerre-Gaussian modes with common waist position and waist parameter. Although these structures are not diffraction-free, they show self-healing property. This self-reconstruction of the ring lattice can be understood by looking into the transverse energy flow at different z planes.

Information content of optical vortex fields.

We study, experimentally as well as theoretically, the spatial coherence function and the Wigner distribution function for one-dimensional projections of optical vortices of different orders. The information entropy derived from the spatial coherence functions has been used to quantify the information content of the vortices and compared with those obtained for the Gaussian beam. The experimental results verify the theoretical findings of Agarwal and Banerji [Opt.

Crafting the core asymmetry to lift the degeneracy of optical vortices.

We introduce an asymmetry in the core of a high charge optical vortex by using an appropriate computer generated hologram. The splitting of a high charge optical vortex core into unit charge vortices has been found to depend on the extent of the asymmetry. For a second order vortex, the trajectories of the split unit charged vortices and their separation have been recorded as a function of change in the asymmetry of the core.