We report the shaping of the polarization state of a femtosecond Bessel beam, which produces a high-intensity focus over a distance largely exceeding the Rayleigh range and less sensitive to Kerr effect than Gaussian beams. Here, we utilize a laser fabricated space variant half-waveplate based on well-designed nanograting distribution to create a Bessel beam exceeding 60 µm length with a helical polarization rotation from 0° to 180° along the propagating path. We use this beam to inscribe a high circular birefringence inscription in silica.
Bessel beams are important for light-sheet microscopy, optical trapping, nonlinear optics, or laser materials processing. For these applications, it could be very attractive to control polarization along propagation. We demonstrate, for the first time, polarization shaping of an optical pulse along its propagation. We use laser-induced nanogratings to create a polarization-shaping element, which controls the polarization distribution of a diffraction-free Bessel beam. We successfully generated femtosecond Bessel beams with a length exceeding 60 µm for a submicron focal spot diameter, where the axis of the linear polarization continuously rotates from zero up to 180 degrees.
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