Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Vector Beams For Fundamental Physics And Applications, Giovanni Milione

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Lights salient degrees of freedom are the independent parameters that completely de- scribe an electromagnetic wave (in the paraxial approximation) and include polarization, wavelength, and time. Most recently, lights space degree of freedom has received sig- nificant attention via the sub-discipline of optics that can be referred to as complex light or structured light. The study of complex light is a veritable renaissance of optics; us- ing lights space degree of freedom many classical optics phenomena have been revisited with novel results. In this thesis, a novel form of structured light referred to as vector beams will be investigated. It …