Full Poincare beams obtained by means of uniaxial crystals

Abstract

The generation of non-uniformly totally polarized beams and the study of their applications is a subject of increasing interest in the last years. A particular class of beams of this kind are the so-called full Poincare beams, which have the property of presenting all possible polarization states across their transverse section. Here we present a simple and easy way to obtain a beam endowed with such property. The method is based on the use of an initially linearly polarized beam that propagates along the optic axis of a uniaxial crystal.