Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser

Hongyu Liu; Lisong Yan; Liang Wang; Dongfang Li; Shenao Zhang; Xin Liu; Heyan Liu; Kunjian Dai; Qing Wang; Jinwei Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01902-1

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser

Original Articles

- Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser
- Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser
- LSA 2025年14卷第8期页码：2297-2307
- Affiliations：
  
  1.School of Optical and Electronic Information and Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
  2.School of Optics and Photonics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China
- Author bio：
  
  Jinwei Zhang (jinweizhang@hust.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01902-1
  中图分类号：
- 收稿日期：2024-12-16，
  
  修回日期：2025-05-14，
  
  录用日期：2025-05-21，
  
  网络出版日期：2025-06-23，
  
  纸质出版日期：2025-08-31
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser[J]. LSA, 2025,14(8):2297-2307.

Liu, H. U. et al. Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2297-2307 (2025).
Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser[J]. LSA, 2025,14(8):2297-2307. DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01902-1.

Liu, H. U. et al. Generation of femtosecond polygonal optical vortices from a mode-locked quasi-frequency-degenerate laser. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 2297-2307 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01902-1.

摘要

Abstract

Polygonal optical vortices—a new subset of optical vortices—uniquely enable numerous applications due to the new degrees of freedom offered and their customizable light intensity structure. So far

their generation has only been reported for continuous wave. Here

we demonstrate the first femtosecond polygonal optical vortex pulses

which is also the first pulsed demonstration of such vortices in general. From a mode-locked Yb: KGW laser oscillator

femtosecond Hermit-Gaussian pulses at the quasi-frequency-degenerate state were generated and subsequently converted by astigmatic mode conversion to femtosecond polygonal optical vortices. They have light intensity distributions of square

pentagonal

and hexagonal shapes and carry orbital angular momentums. In all these variations

the average power and pulse duration are greater than one watt and less than 500 fs. These results open the way to new applications in the fields of femtosecond optical tweezer and three-dimensional microstructure fabrication.

关键词

Keywords

references

Wang, J. Advances in communications using optical vortices. Photonics Res. 4 , B14–B28 (2016)..

Liu, J. Y. et al. 1-Pbps orbital angularmomentum fibre-optic transmission. Light Sci. Appl. 11 , 202 (2022)..

Wan, Z. S. et al. Divergence-degenerate spatial multiplexing towards future ultrahigh capacity, low error-rate optical communications. Light Sci. Appl. 11 , 144 (2022)..

Lei, T. et al. Massive individual orbital angular momentum channels for multiplexing enabled by Dammann gratings. Light Sci. Appl. 4 , e257 (2015)..

Singh, B. K. & Dowling, J. P. Particle manipulation beyond the diffraction limit using structured super-oscillating light beams. Light Sci. Appl. 6 , e17050 (2017)..

Kapale, K. T. & Dowling, J. P. Vortex phase qubit: generating arbitrary, counterrotating, coherent superpositions in Bose-Einstein condensates via optical angular momentum beams. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 , 173601 (2005)..

Tamburini, F. et al. Overcoming the Rayleigh criterion limit with optical vortices. Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 , 163903 (2006)..

Mair, A. et al. Entanglement of the orbital angular momentum states of photons. Nature 412 , 313–316 (2001)..

Molina-Terriza, G., Torres, J. P. & Torner, L. Twisted photons. Nat. Phys. 3 , 305–310 (2007)..

Erhard, M. et al. Twisted photons: new quantum perspectives in high dimensions. Light Sci. Appl. 7 , 17146 (2018)..

Zhou, Z. Y. et al. Orbital angular momentum photonic quantum interface. Light Sci. Appl. 5 , e16019 (2016)..

Chen, H. S. et al. 100-W Yb: YAG thin-disk vortex laser oscillator. Light Adv. Manuf. 4 , 40 (2023)..

Géneaux, R. et al. Synthesis and characterization of attosecond light vortices in the extreme ultraviolet. Nat. Commun. 7 , 12583 (2016)..

Liu, C. X. et al. Manipulating ellipsoidal micro-particles by femtosecond vortex tweezers. J. Opt. 17 , 035402 (2015)..

Ran, L. L., Guo, Z. Y. & Qu, S. L. Rotational motions of optically trapped microscopic particles by a vortex femtosecond laser. Chin. Phys. B 21 , 104206 (2012)..

Brullot, W. et al. Resolving enantiomers using the optical angular momentum of twisted light. Sci. Adv. 2 , e1501349 (2016)..

Ni, J. C. et al. Three-dimensional chiral microstructures fabricated by structured optical vortices in isotropic material. Light Sci. Appl. 6 , e17011 (2017)..

Liu, H. Y. et al. High-order femtosecond vortices up to the 30th order generated from a powerful mode-locked Hermite-Gaussian laser. Light Sci. Appl. 12 , 207 (2023)..

Hu, X. W., Wang, S. & Zhou, S. H. High-order femtosecond vortices converted from a tunable high-order Hermite–Gaussian Yb: CALGO laser. Laser Phys. 31 , 095001 (2021)..

Wu, F. et al. Generation of sub-100 fs vortices from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Hermite–Gaussian Yb: CALGO oscillator. Opt. Lett. 49 , 5747–5750 (2024)..

Zhao, Y. G. et al. Structured laser beams: toward 2-μm femtosecond laser vortices. Photonics Res. 9 , 357–363 (2021)..

Liu, X. et al. Generation of femtosecond optical vortices with multiple separate phase singularities from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb: KGW oscillator. Opt. Express 31 , 39738–39746 (2023)..

Qian, J. Y. et al. Femtosecond mid-IR optical vortex laser based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification. Photonics Res. 8 , 421–425 (2020)..

Tong, H. et al. Generation of a mid-infrared femtosecond vortex beam from an optical parametric oscillator. Opt. Lett. 45 , 989–992 (2020)..

Wang, G. X. et al. Generation of a polygonal perfect optical vortex array by optical pen. J. Optical Soc. Am. B 39 , 2056–2060 (2022)..

Liu, Y. et al. Generation and measurement of irregular polygonal perfect vortex optical beam based on all-dielectric geometric metasurface. Opt. Express 31 , 16192–16204 (2023)..

He, M. R. et al. Generalized perfect optical vortices with free lens modulation. Photonics Res. 11 , 27–34 (2023)..

Ren, Y. et al. Polygonal shaping and multi-singularity manipulation of optical vortices via high-order cross-phase. Opt. Express 28 , 26257–26266 (2020)..

Hu, J. T. et al. Generation of polygonal non-diffracting beams via angular spectral phases. Opt. Express 32 , 23458–23468 (2024)..

Shen, Y. J. et al. Polygonal vortex beams. IEEE Photonics J. 10 , 1503016 (2018)..

Sugioka, K. & Cheng, Y. Ultrafast lasers-reliable tools for advanced materials processing. Light Sci. Appl. 3 , e149 (2014)..

Yang, L. et al. Direct laser writing of complex microtubes using femtosecond vortex beams. Appl. Phys. Lett. 110 , 221103 (2017)..

Zhang, Y. Q.et al. Nonlinearity-induced multiplexed optical trapping and manipulation with femtosecond vector beams. Nano Lett. 18 , 5538–5543 (2018)..

Lin, J. et al. Deterministic approach to the generation of modified helical beams for optical manipulation. Opt. Express 13 , 3862–3867 (2005)..

Bezuhanov, K. et al. Vortices in femtosecond laser fields. Opt. Lett. 29 , 1942–1944 (2004)..

Zeylikovich, I. et al. Ultrashort Laguerre-Gaussian pulses with angular and group velocity dispersion compensation. Opt. Lett. 32 , 2025–2027 (2007)..

Beijersbergen, M. W. et al. Astigmatic laser mode converters and transfer of orbital angular momentum. Opt. Commun. 96 , 123–132 (1993)..

Dingjan, J., Van Exter, M. P. & Woerdman, J. P. Geometric modes in a single-frequency Nd: YVO 4 laser. Opt. Commun. 188 , 345–351 (2001)..

Liang, H. C. et al. Picosecond optical vortex converted from multigigahertz self-mode-locked high-order Hermite-Gaussian Nd: GdVO4 lasers. Opt. Lett. 34 , 3842–3844 (2009)..

Chen, H. et al. Diamond Raman vortex lasers. ACS Photonics 12 , 864–869 (2025)..

Chen, Y. F. et al. Exploring the effect of fractional degeneracy and the emergence of ray-wave duality in solid-state lasers with off-axis pumping. Phys. Rev. A 88 , 013827 (2013)..

Lü, H. B. et al. Fast and accurate modal decomposition of multimode fiber based on stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm. Appl. Opt. 52 , 2905–2908 (2013)..

Takeda, M., Ina, H. & Kobayashi, S. Fourier-transform method of fringe-pattern analysis for computer-based topography and interferometry. J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72 , 156–160 (1982)..

Götte, J. B. et al. Light beams with fractional orbital angular momentum and their vortex structure. Opt. Express 16 , 993–1006 (2008)..

Pires, D. G. et al. Stability of optical knots in atmospheric turbulence. Nat. Commun. 16 , 3001 (2025)..

Svelto, O. Principles of lasers. Hanna, D. C. trans. 5th edn, (New York: Springer, 2010).

Chen, Y. F. et al. Wave representation of geometrical laser beam trajectories in a hemiconfocal cavity. Phys. Rev. A 69 , 053807 (2004)..

浏览量

Downloads

CSCD

文章被引用时，请邮件提醒。

Submit

工具集

关联资源

暂无数据