提出了一种基于马赫-曾德尔干涉仪(MZI)产生高阶庞加莱球上任意矢量涡旋光束的方法。利用半波片和偏振分光棱镜组合调节支路光束振幅, 搭配常用的两个半波片组调节合成光束的相位, 进而生成并变换矢量涡旋光束, 优化了传统的实验光路, 降低了光束能量损耗, 利用1/4波片实现不同高阶庞加莱球上矢量涡旋光束的变换。与现有的基于马赫-曾德尔干涉仪矢量光束生成方法比较, 该光路结构简单, 光束转换效率提高。在理论上, 通过琼斯矩阵计算, 在拓扑荷数为m=±1高阶庞加莱球上得到了各矢量涡旋光束的偏振态。根据该方法搭建了一套矢量涡旋光束产生的实验光路, 实验结果与理论分析一致, 证明了这种方法的实用性。

A method based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) to generate arbitrary vectorial vortex beams in a higher-order Poincare sphere is proposed. The combination of half-wave plate and polarization beam splitter prism is used to adjust the amplitude of branch beam, and the two common half-wave plates are used to adjust the phase of the composite beam in order to generate and transform the vector vortex beam. The traditional experimental optical path is optimized, the energy loss of the beam is reduced, and the transformation of the vector vortex beam on the different high-order Poincare spheres is realized by the quarter-wave plate. Compared with the existing Mach-Zehnder interferometer-based vector beam generation method, the optical path structure is simple and the beam conversion efficiency is improved. Theoretically, the polarization state of each vector vortex beam on Poincare sphere with topological charge m=±1 is obtained by Jones matrix calculation. According to this method, a set of experimental light path of vector vortex beam is set up. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical analysis, which proves the practicability of this method.