Practical generation of arbitrary high-order cylindrical vector beams by cascading vortex half-wave plates

A practical direct-view scheme for generating arbitrary high-order cylindrical vector (HCV) beams by cascading vortex half-wave plates (VHPs) is presented. The combination of odd number 2n-1 VHPs for n >= 1 can realize (m(2n-1)-m(2)(n-)(7)+...+m(1))-order CV beams, in which m is the order number of VHP and the corresponding subscript 2n-1 represents the arrangement number of VHPs, and the cascading of even number 2n ones can obtain (m(2n)-m(2n-1)+...+m(2)-m(1))-order CV beams. All 1-12 order CV beams, including the high-order anti-vortex CV (ACV) beams, are generated only by selectively cascading the VHPs with m=1, 3 and 8. The polarization properties of the generated HCV beams are investigated by measuring the corresponding Stokes parameters. It is experimentally demonstrated that arbitrary HCV beams are effectively achieved by the proposed method. The order numbers of CV beams can be greatly expanded by cascading limited types of VHPs. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement