Focusing light with orbital angular momentum by circular array antenna

• Published in: Optics express Vol. 25; no. 12; pp. 13728 - 13735
• Main Authors: Arikawa, Takashi, Morimoto, Shohei, Tanaka, Koichiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 12.06.2017
• ISSN: 1094-4087; 1094-4087
• DOI: 10.1364/OE.25.013728

We experimentally demonstrated focusing of light with orbital angular momentum (OAM) using an 8-element circular array of linear antennas. A spiral phase plate was used to generate a vortex beam with an OAM of ħ in the terahertz (THz) frequency region. We used THz near-field microscope to directly measure the phase vortex. A beam profile with a center dark spot and 2π phase rotation was observed in the small center gap region of the circular array antenna after the vortex beam excitation. The beam size is reduced by a factor of 3.4 ± 0.2. Half-wave resonance of the antenna element is responsible for the focusing function, indicating the scalability of this method to other frequency regions. This method will enable deep subwavelength focusing of light with OAM and eliminate the obstacle for the observation of the dipole forbidden transition with finite OAM of the vortex beam.