Tight focusing of spirally polarized vortex beams

The tight focusing of spirally polarized focused vortex beams is analyzed numerically based on the vectorial Debye theory. The expressions for the electric field and the orbital angular momentum of focused beams are derived. It is shown that the intensity distribution in the focal plane is dependent on the specific spirally polarized state and the coefficient of the spiral polarization function. By presenting the phase contours of the component polarized in the radial direction, it is found that the radii of dislocation lines will increase with the increase of the power of the spirally polarization function. It is reveled that the same orbital angular momentum can be obtained for different spirally polarized state at certain distance along the propagation direction in the focal region. Besides, the orbital angular momentum distributions for different polarized states have fewer crossover points with each other for higher topological charge. The influence of the spirally polarized state on the orbital angular momentum in the focal plane is also studied. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.