Spiral phase plates for the generation of high-order Laguerre-Gaussian beams with non-zero radial index

The work of design, fabrication and characterization of spiral phase plates for the generation of Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams with non-null radial index is presented. Samples were fabricated by electron beam lithography on polymethylmethacrylate layers over glass substrates. The optical response of these phase optical elements was measured and the purity of the experimental beams was investigated in terms of Laguerre-Gaussian modes contributions. The far-field intensity pattern was compared with theoretical models and numerical simulations, while the expected phase features were confirmed by interferometric analyses. The high quality of the output beams confirms the applicability of these phase plates for the generation of high-order Laguerre-Gaussian beams. A novel application consisting in the design of computer-generated holograms encoding information for light beams carrying phase singularities is shown. A numerical code based on iterative Fourier transform algorithm has been developed for the computation of the phase pattern of phase-only diffractive optical element for illumination under LG beams. Numerical analysis and preliminary experimental results confirm the applicability of these devices as high-security optical elements.