Amplification of higher order Poincare sphere beams through Nd:YLF and Nd:YAG crystals

摘要

Scalar and vector orbital angular momentum modes, generally described by the higher order Poincare sphere (HOPS), have found many applications to date, but limited to low-power levels. It has thus become topical to consider amplification of such structured light modes. Here, we employ recently developed characterisation tools for HOPS beams to study their purity through birefringent and non-birefringent amplifiers in a master oscillator power amplifier configuration. We outline a general theory for the problem that considers both vector and gain perspectives, and confirm the theory by experiment.