Measurement of the Transverse Displacement at Total Reflection by Helicoidal Laser Eigenstates

Abstract

The transverse displacement at total reflection of a laser beam is experimentally investigated for only one reflection of the circularly polarized beams. The differential experimental method uses the high sensitivity of the helicoidal eigenstates of a laser to measure, for the first time, the intracavity transverse shift for various angles of incidence. The measurements are consistent with our calculations of the transverse shift for circularly polarized light.