Fully structured light goes 3D: From entanglement beating to skyrmionic Hopfions
Prof. Cornelia Denz (Universität Münster)

Within the last decades, customized light fields have proven their significance in various research areas, ranging from nano-scale complexity over optical micromanipulation to high-resolution imaging and material machining. Besides well-established amplitude and phase modulation, within recent years, structured light incorporated orbital and spin angular momentum. Moreover, polarization has been rediscovered as a degree of freedom that enriches the diversity of spatially structured light.

In our contribution, we discuss creating 3d light landscapes by interfering counterpropagating beams or by tightly focusing polarization structured light. In this way, spatial entanglement of spin- and orbital angular momentum is created, leading to the observation of entanglement beating. Moreover, non-negligible longitudinal vector field components appear in focal light landscapes forming exotic singular and topological structures as arrays of Möbius strips or skyrmionics Hopfions. We evince the benefit of these fields for advanced optical trapping and information processing.