Generation Modulation and Detection of Phase Structured Laser Beams for Sensing Application

Abstract

Lasers play a very important role in modern era of applications, due to their properties and characteristics. Recent advances in this area shows how to exploit not only the energy of these beams but also momentum. Photons, despite being massless particles, can carry momentum by virtue of their energy. When light interacts with matter, such as reflecting off a surface or being absorbed by an object, it imparts a linear momentum. This results in a force, known as radiation pressure, which can be harnessed for various applications, including solar sails for spacecraft propulsion. Light from laser can also carry angular momentum of two types called spin angular momentum associated to polarization and orbital angular momentum associated to spatial distribution. The angular momentum of the beams can be used only when these laser beams are structured with respect to their phase and polarization. Among the various structured beams the Laguerre Gaussian beams are considered as prominent in applications such as optical tweezing and sensing. Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam with singularities in the middle offer orbital angular momentum (OAM) with different helicity in modes newline