The formation of laser beams with pure azimuthal or radial polarization

Abstract

Laser resonator configurations for obtaining pure azimuthal and radial polarized beams are presented. They involve the coherent summation, inside the laser resonator, of two orthogonally polarized TEM01 modes. Basic principles and experimental results with a Nd:YAG laser are presented. The results include a full space variant polarization measurement and show efficient formation of high-quality azimuthal and radial polarized beams.