Localized geometric phase analogue associated with Poincaré beams due to unfolding of fractional optical vortex beams through a birefringent crystal

Fractional optical vortex beam is generated by the diffraction of a Gaussian beam using computer generated hologram embedded with mixed screw-edge dislocation. Unfolding of the generated fractional vortex beam into eigen-polarization components with orthogonal polarization results in the conversion of scalar phase singularity to vector polarization singularities in the beam cross-section. The evolution of the singularities of the ellipse field namely C-points (points of undefined major axis) and L-lines (lines of undefined handedness) in the state of polarization distribution on a transverse plane quantifies the transformation. The effect of the phase morphology dictated by the fractional order of the dislocation, transverse spatial separation and longitudinal relative phase of the two eigen-polarization components on determining the complex transverse polarization structure is investigated. The nature of the generated Poincaré beam is also indicated by projecting the states of polarization on to the Poincaré sphere. With increasing order of dislocation from 0.0 to 1.0 in fractional steps and with increasing relative phase, the partial Poincaré beam is transformed to a full Poincaré beam. The transformation of the local structure around the C-points is measured through a localized phase parameter defined similar to Pancharatnam–Berry geometric phase by the projected Poincaré sphere contour for different dynamic phase difference of the unfolded beams generated from different fractional order dislocation. (paper)