In the approximation of paraxial optics it is agreed, that the distribution of a light flow in a laser field does not depend on the state of polarization of a mode beam. Such approximation is justified as long as the wave objects are being investigated in scales, considerably exceeding the length of light. Nevertheless, at research of field structure in optical fibers and in the waist of a Gaussian beam after short-focus microobjective the effects of polarization begin to play an essential role. So in work for speckle structure and in work for wave caustics of the field of a multimode fiber the dependence of location of zeros and maxima of field on a polarization state of light was discovered. This effect has received the name of optical Magnus effect. The physical nature of this effect is connected with spin-orbital interaction in a wave field, and essentially depends on the gradient of a refractive index of optical medium. However for mode beams propagating in a free space such effect takes no place since the gradient of a refractive index is zero. At the same time in recent works on the basis of estimated accounts the conclusion about possible manifestation of optical Magnus effect was mae in strongly focused Gaussian beams propagating in a free space. The value of linear displacement according to estimates given in these works has the order of a wave length fraction. Researchers submitted in work, show that the structure of a paraxial Gaussian beam depends on it's state of polarization. The objective of the present work was theoretical and experimental investigation of polarization structure of paraxial and nonparaxial Gaussian beams propagating in a free space.

Date Published: 18 November 1999
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 3904, Fourth International Conference on Correlation Optics, (18 November 1999); doi: 10.1117/12.370454

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3904:
Fourth International Conference on Correlation Optics
Oleg V. Angelsky, Editor(s)