Measurement of Airy-vortex beam topological charges based on a pixelated micropolarizer array

In this paper, we numerically studied the intensity patterns and screw phases of an embedded optical vortex in an Airy beam generated by a 3/2 phase pattern imposed on a spatial light modulator. It is found that the optical vortex and the Airy beam's main lobe approach each other during propagation, which means the energy of the Airy beam's intensity peaks can be taken advantage of by the imposed vortices. Based on a pixelated micropolarizer array in the interference path, we succeeded in measuring the integer topological charges up to -10 according to the phase jump. In addition, fractional topological charges were also obtained in the experiment. Both of the experimental results are acquired in a high-precision and robust way. This work will promote potential application of Airy-vortex beams in fields such as optical manipulation, laser processing, and photon entanglement. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America