2021/08/18 by I. A. Herrera-Hernández, Herrera-Hernández, I. A., Cristian Mojica-Casique +3
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Optics (physics.optics) #Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2108.07932
openalex publication_date 2021/08/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In the past decade, optical vortex knots with axial dimensions on the order of 102-105 wavelengths (λ) have been implemented in the laboratory. However, many potential applications require a drastic reduction on the the size of these knots to the order of λ. In this work, we show the first measurement of an optical vortex knot (trefoil) with an axial length of 1.99 λ contained within a volume (x× y× z) of 1.90× 2.19× 1.99 λ3. Prior to focusing, the laser light is linearly polarized (x, horizontal) and we observe the knot in the dominant x polarization component of the tightly focused field. We also observe the transition of the trefoil knot to a couple of vortex loops via reconnection of the vortex lines as we change the spatial scale of the angular spectrum representation of the field.