Yuzhao MA^1,2*

¹Tianjin Key Laboratory for Advanced Signal Processing, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, P. R. China ²College of Electronic Information Engineering, Civil Aviation University of China, Tianjin 300300, P. R. China

(Received August 24, 2011; Accepted January 10, 2012)

We present an experimental setup to generate radially polarized beams without using high-cost optical elements. In the setup a four-segment polarization converter is used in front of the fiber to produce a pseudo radially polarized beam. A traditional step-index fiber which supports only LP₀₁ and LP₁₁ modes is then used as a mode-cleaning device. A commercial mechanical fiber-squeezer polarization controller is applied to produce adequate pressure and twist onto the fiber. The four-segment polarization converter and the fiber squeezer polarization controller are adjusted by turns for improving the beam quality in intensity and polarization. Additionally, several methods of characterizing the polarization properties of radially polarized beams are reviewed. One of the latest methods is applied for characterizing the polarization properties of the radially polarized beams produced by using our technique. The results show the high-quality of the obtained beams.

Key words: radially polarized light, step-index optical fiber, LP modes

^*E-mail address: yzma@cauc.edu.cn