Singular beams based on tangential phase warp.

We introduce a new kind of singular beam with a controllable topological charge. These beams are created by modulating the spatial phase using a tangent function on the angular coordinate, and a linear function on the radial coordinate. While the angular function controls the topological charge of the beam, the radial function generates a warped intensity profile. We simulate several cases to analyze their evolution with propagation and determine their topological charge. The results are supported with an experiment using a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor.

Real-time acquisition of complex optical fields by binary amplitude modulation.

We describe, through simulations and experiments, a real-time wavefront acquisition technique using random binary amplitude masks and an iterative phase retrieval algorithm based on the Fresnel propagator. By using a digital micromirror device, it is possible to recover an unknown complex object by illuminating with this set of masks and simultaneously recording the resulting intensity patterns with a high-speed camera, making this technique suitable for dynamic applications.

Complex wavefront reconstruction from multiple-image planes produced by a focus tunable lens.

We propose, through simulations and experiments, a wavefront reconstruction technique using a focus-tunable lens and a phase-retrieval technique. A collimated beam illuminates a complex object (amplitude and phase), and a diffuser then modulates the outgoing wavefront. Finally the diffracted complex field reaches the focus-tunable lens, and a CMOS camera positioned at a fixed plane registers the subjective speckle distribution produced by the lens (one pattern for each focal length). We have demonstrated that a tunable lens can replace the translation stage used in the conventional single-beam, multiple-intensity reconstruction algorithm. In other words, through iterations with a modified version of this algorithm, the speckle images produced by different focal lengths can be successfully employed to recover the initial complex object. With no movable elements, (speckle) image sampling can be performed at high frame rates, which is suitable for dynamical reconstruction applications.