Complexly Shaped Vector Beams via Conical Diffraction Cascade
Résumé
The complex structuring of light waves is recently attracting considerable attention for fundamental issues and in relation to various applications ranging from optical tweezers, to classical or quantum communication, to metrology or super-resolution microscopy, just to name a few [1] . In the above context, the phenomenon of conical refraction (or conical diffraction), first predicted in 1832 by Hamilton, has found a strong revived interest in the last few years [2] - [6] . This is due on one hand on the number of demonstrated and potential applications in modern photonics and on the other hand on the better theoretical understanding owing to the development and refinement of a paraxial diffraction theory of the whole phenomenon [2] , [3] .