Structured optical fields embedded with polarization singularities (PSs) have attracted extensive attention due to their capability to retain topological invariance during propagation. Many advances in PS research have been made over the past 20 years in the areas of mathematical description, generation and detection technologies, propagation dynamics, and applications. However, one of the most crucial and difficult tasks continues to be manipulating PSs with multiple degrees of freedom, especially in three-dimensional (3D) tailored optical fields. We propose and demonstrate the longitudinal PS lines obtained by superimposing Bessel-like modes with orthogonal polarization states on composite vector optical fields (VOFs). The embedded PSs in the fields can be manipulated to propagate robustly along arbitrary trajectories, or to annihilate, revive, and transform each other at on-demand positions in 3D space, allowing complex PS’ topological morphology and intensity patterns to be flexibly customized. Our findings could spur further research into singular optics and help with applications such as micromanipulation, microstructure fabrication, and optical encryption.

We present a highly efficient method of generating and shaping ellipse perfect vector beams (EPVBs) with a prescribed ellipse intensity profile and continuously variant linear polarization state. The scheme is based on the coaxial superposition of two orthogonally polarized ellipse laser beams of controllable phase vortex serving as the base vector components. The phase-only computer-generated hologram is specifically designed by means of a modified iteration algorithm involving a complex amplitude constraint, which is able to generate an EPVB with high diffraction efficiency in the vector optical field generator. We experimentally demonstrate that the efficiency of generating the EPVB has a notable improvement from 1.83% in the conventional complex amplitude modulation based technique to 11.1% in our method. We also discuss and demonstrate the simultaneous shaping of multiple EPVBs with independent tunable ellipticity and polarization vortex in both transversal (2D) and axial (3D) focusing structures, proving potentials in a variety of polarization-mediated applications such as trapping and transportation of particles in more complex geometric circumstances.

The redistribution of the energy flow of tightly focused ellipticity-variant vector optical fields is presented. We theoretically design and experimentally generate this kind of ellipticity-variant vector optical field, and further explore the redistribution of the energy flow in the focal plane by designing different phase masks including fanlike phase masks and vortex phase masks on them. The flexibly controlled transverse energy flow rings of the tightly focused ellipticity-variant vector optical fields with and without phase masks can be used to transport multiple absorptive particles along certain paths, which may be widely applied in optical trapping and manipulation.

Femtosecond laser filamentation is generally initialized from unpredictable symmetry breaking caused by random noise, causing it to be barely controlled. However, it is always anticipated for stable and controllable filamentation. We present and demonstrate the idea that hybridly polarized vector fields with axial symmetry broken polarization, associated with a pair of orthogonally linearly polarized vortices carrying the opposite-handed orbital angular momenta, could achieve controllable and robust multiple filamentation. Here, our motivation is to unveil the underlying physics behind such controllable and robust multiple filamentation. The symmetry breaking should first be actively controllable and then be able to effectively inhibit random noise. Robust multiple filamentation is inseparable from the fact that the phases between the multiple filaments are always locked. In contrast, uncontrollable multiple filamentation is always accompanied with loss of phase, i.e., the multiple filaments become incoherent to each other. Our results may offer a suggestion for achieving controllable and robust multiple filamentation in other systems.and Equipment Development Project (2012YQ17004); Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics.