Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Guenther-Scharowsky-Strasse 1, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany. Institute of Optics, Information and Photonics, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Staudtstrasse 7/B2, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Guenther-Scharowsky-Strasse 1, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany. Institute of Optics, Information and Photonics, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Staudtstrasse 7/B2, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany. Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, 25 Templeton Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.
Science. 2015 Feb 27;347(6225):964-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1260635. Epub 2015 Jan 29.
Möbius strips are three-dimensional geometrical structures, fascinating for their peculiar property of being surfaces with only one "side"—or, more technically, being "nonorientable" surfaces. Despite being easily realized artificially, the spontaneous emergence of these structures in nature is exceedingly rare. Here, we generate Möbius strips of optical polarization by tightly focusing the light beam emerging from a q-plate, a liquid crystal device that modifies the polarization of light in a space-variant manner. Using a recently developed method for the three-dimensional nanotomography of optical vector fields, we fully reconstruct the light polarization structure in the focal region, confirming the appearance of Möbius polarization structures. The preparation of such structured light modes may be important for complex light beam engineering and optical micro- and nanofabrication.
莫比乌斯带是一种三维几何结构，因其具有仅一个“边”的奇特性质而引人入胜——或者更准确地说，它是一种“不可定向”的曲面。尽管很容易人为地实现，但这些结构在自然界中的自发出现却极为罕见。在这里，我们通过紧密聚焦从 q 板（一种液晶器件，可按空间变化的方式改变光的偏振）出射的光束来产生光学偏振的莫比乌斯带。我们使用最近开发的用于光学矢量场三维纳米层析成像的方法，完全重建了焦区中的光偏振结构，证实了莫比乌斯偏振结构的出现。这种结构化光模式的制备对于复杂光束工程和光学微纳加工可能很重要。
