Optical Vortex Propagation throughLinear Media

Abstract

Structured light field propagation through nonlinear media is important to understand for future applications in all-optical machine learning. To understand this complicated system we must first understand a simpler case. In this thesis we will study the propa- gation and subsequent interaction of two optical vortices. We will do so by adding the vortices into an initially Gaussian laser beam and leting the resulting beam propagate through a lens such that we may investigate the behaviour around the focus. From this experiment we have observed vortices of opposite charge annihilate, but retain some azimuthal asymmetry in the beam profile in the focus. We have also observed identi- cally charged vortices avoid merging by rotating around each other. Additionally we discuss a method to calibrate a spatial light modulator.