Seminar by Dr Leary 'Polarization-based control of spin-orbit hybrid modes of light in biphoton interference'

Speaker:
Dr Cody Leary
Assistant Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, The College of Wooster, USA

Seminar Title:
Polarization-based control of spin-orbit hybrid modes of light in biphoton interference

Abstract:
We discuss the experimental generation of a class of spin-orbit hybrid modes of light via an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer, obtained from an input beam prepared in a product state of its spin and orbital degrees of freedom. These modes contain a spatially varying polarization structure which may be controllably rotated about the beam axis by varying the retardance between the vertical and horizontal polarization components of the light. Additionally, their transverse spatial intensity distributions may be continuously manipulated by tuning the input polarization parameters. In the case of an analogous biphoton input, we predict that this device will exhibit biphoton (Hong-Ou-Mandel) interference in conjunction with the aforementioned mode transformations.