arXiv subjects

Jianping Ding

Publications and source records attributed to Jianping Ding.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Encoding Propagation Invariance into Light

Diffraction governs the axial evolution of optical fields, whereas conventional holographic synthesis primarily controls their transverse structure. Here we add axial diffraction management as an additional design freedom to the transverse_field programmability of holography, enabling the transverse optical function and its diffraction-driven axial evolution to be co_designed. By incorporating established propagation_invariant dynamics into computer_generated hologram and meta_hologram synthesis, we realize task_selectable axial responses in user_defined monochromatic, full-colour and vectorial fields. On a spatial light modulator, the same scalar user_defined field is configured either for a rapidly evolving 1.2_cm depth of field or for an approximately 75_cm propagation_invariant range. Millimetre_scale metasurfaces further enable metre_scale refocusing_free full_colour projection and vectorial colour fields with polarization textures preserved over more than 30 cm. This transverse_axial co_design framework extends holographic field synthesis beyond transverse programmability, providing a broadly compatible route towards task_configurable optical systems and compact multidimensional photonics.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Hydrodynamic Insight Drives Multimodal Light_Field Dynamics via Streamline Engineering

Since the 1970s, analogies between laser dynamics and fluid systems have provided insight into phenomena such as chaos, multistability, and turbulence. Building on this perspective, we model the optical field as an energy fluid and interpret Poynting-vector trajectories as energy streamlines, yielding a unified, three_dimensional map of light's free-space dynamics. By sculpting these streamlines, we develop an approach to talior vortex-beam propagation dynamics that suppresses both diffraction- and OAM-induced broadening. Extending this method to general structured modes, we enable a single field to exhibit customizable multimodal dynamics that integrate features from primary structured light families: the diffraction-free, self-healing behavior of Bessel beams; the tunable self-similarity of Laguerre-Gaussian beams and adjustable self-acceleration of Airy beams. Additionally, it allows for adjustable propagating energy-density profiles to counteract losses. Optical-tweezer experiments,analogous to particle-tracking velocimetry in fluid dynamics, show that trapped microspheres closely follow the designed streamlines, validating the streamline geometries and indicating a potential route toward precision 3D optomechanical control. In a proof-of-principle free-space communication experiment, vortex beams with customized multimodal dynamics demonstrate several improvements, including more independent channels, reduced turbulence-induced mode scattering, and robust non-line-of-sight transmission. Together, the streamline-engineering approach offers a unified and adaptable strategy for tailoring light's propagation dynamics, with potential applications in precision optomechanics, optofluidics, and advanced optical networking.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Controlling Enhancement of Transmitted Goos-H\"anchen Shifts: From Symmetric to Unidirectional

Since the discovery of the Goos-H\"anchen (GH) shift in the 1940s, its deep connections to Fourier transforms and causality have led to widespread interest and applications in optics, acoustics, and quantum mechanics. Control of the shift involves both its magnitude and direction. Although resonance-enhanced GH shift under reflection has significantly expanded and facilitated its observation and application, implementations in transmission scenarios remain scarce. More importantly, discussions on the direction of the GH shift are rare, and the associated degree of freedom for controlling directional asymmetry has not been fully explored. To address these issues, we discuss a control framework for enhancing transmitted GH shifts from symmetric to asymmetric. A design with complete degrees of freedom from symmetric shift enhancement to unidirectional shift enhancement is demonstrated in transmission scenarios. The control dimension associated with directionality significantly enhances the flexibility of beam shift control, with broad application prospects in scenarios such as high-sensitivity sensing, precision measurement, optical isolators, and asymmetric optical switches.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2025

Vortex-Free Intrinsic Orbital Angular Momentum

Optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) has traditionally relied on vortex beams with helical phase fronts imparting quantized intrinsic OAM. Here, we introduce a fundamentally vortex_free framework where intrinsic OAM arises from the natural curvature of lights energy flow, specifically, the caustic geometry of self_accelerating beams whose curved trajectories act as orbital highways for photons. This OAM generation mechanism is independent of phase vortices but mirrors celestial orbital motion. Through numerical simulations, experimental characterization, and optomechanical measurements using optical tweezers, we demonstrate intrinsic vortex_free OAM rooted solely in beam intensity architecture. Generalizing beyond geometric caustics to arbitrary optical fields, we demonstrate OAM via curved Poynting_vector energy streamlines, unifying conventional vortex and novel vortex_free OAM under a single quantitative framework. Streamline engineering enables customizable rotational dynamics, including hybrid orbital_cyclonic motions reminiscent of tropical storms, with promising applications in precision optomechanics, optofluidics, and optical analogues of fluid dynamics. This energy-flow perspective offers a versatile platform for designing and quantifying OAM across structured light.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Three-Photon Polarization Entanglement of Green Light

Recently, great progress has been made in the entanglement of multiple photons at various wavelengths and in different degrees of freedom for optical quantum information applied in diverse scenarios. However, multi-photon entanglement in the transmission window of green light under the water has not been reported yet. Here, by combining femtosecond laser based multi-photon entanglement and entanglement-maintaining frequency upconversion techniques, we successfully generate a green two-photon polarization-entangled Bell state and a green three-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, whose state fidelities are 0.893$\mathbf{\pm}$0.002 and 0.595$\mathbf{\pm}$0.023, respectively. Our result provides a scalable method to prepare green multi-photon entanglement, which may have wide applications in underwater quantum information.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Versatile manipulation of light- and dark- seeking particles on demand

We propose a novel approach to enable the agile manipulation of light- and dark-seeking particles. Our approach involves introducing a two-curvilinear perfect optical vortex beam (TC-POVB) generated by superimposing a pair of curved beams. The TC-POVB exhibits the property of a perfect optical vortex, which means that its size remains constant regardless of its topological charge. Additionally, each curve of the TC-POVB can support a distinct orbital flow density (OFD). This enables the application of torques to produce a dark channel that satisfies the requirements for particle size and drives the revolution or rotation motion of the confined dark-seeking particles. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we manipulate light- and dark-seeking particles experimentally, making them perform various curvilinear trajectories simultaneously, including moving, revolving, and rotating.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

New orbital angular momentum multiplexing strategy: beyond the capacity limit of free-space optical communication

Free space optical (FSO) communication can exploit mode-division multiplexing using orthogonal spatial modes of Laguerre Gaussian beams, such as orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes, wherein OAM multiplexing offers potentially infinite information capacity due to the arbitrary quantization of OAM. Combined with polarization-division multiplexing and wavelength-division multiplexing, OAM multiplexing is a promising solution for future capacity demands. However, the practically addressable number of spatial subchannels is severely limited by the receiver size and the rapid beam expansion with increasing mode order and communication distance. Based on the intrinsic and distinctive property that the divergent degree of the innermost ring of a Laguerre-Gaussian beam is significantly slower than that of the beam cross-section during propagation, here we propose theoretically and demonstrate experimentally a novel communication strategy innermost ring dominated OAM (IRD-OAM) multiplexingn that can overcome these limits and achieve up to 1238% capacity of conventional OAM multiplexing in a canonical FSO link system without any additional hardware modifications. Alternatively, our strategy can also enable longer communication distance (403% of that for conventional OAM multiplexing), or smaller receiver (26.9% in size compared to conventional OAM multiplexing), while maintaining the same capacity as conventional OAM multiplexing. Our work will hasten the development of future FSO communications with ultra high capacity, ultra long distance and highly-integrated devices for deep space, near Earth and Earth surface applications.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Symmetry breaking of Pancharatnam-Berry phase using non-axisymmetric meta-atoms

The Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase in metasurfaces obeys the symmetry restriction, according to which the PB phases of two orthogonal circularly polarized waves are the same but with opposite signs. Here, we reveal a general mechanism to break the axisymmetry of meta-atoms in order to break the PB-phase symmetry restriction. As a proof of concept, we designed a novel meta-atom with a QR-code structure and successfully demonstrated circular-polarization multiplexing metasurface holography. This study provides a fundamentally new understanding of the PB phase and opens a path for arbitrary wavefront engineering using asymmetric electromagnetic structures.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Customizable Laguerre-Gaussian Perfect Vortex Beams

The recognition in the 1990s that vortex beams (VBs), paraxial light beams with optical vortices, carry orbital angular momentum (OAM), has benefited applications ranging from optical manipulation to high-dimensional classical and quantum information communications. The transverse profiles of common VBs, e.g., Laguerre-Gaussian beam and high-order Bessel beam, are hollow donuts whose radii grow up with OAM inevitably. The inherently unperfect character of the VBs that the radius is always positively correlated with OAM, restricts the application of the VBs in many scenarios like fiber optic data transmission, spatial OAM mode (de)multiplexing communication, and particle manipulation, which call for VBs to have the same scale with distinct OAM or even the small vortex ring for large OAM. Here, we derived a theory based on the most widely used Laguerre-Gaussian beam to generate a brand new type of VB with OAM-independent radii that moves away from the common unperfect constraint, called Laguerre-Gaussian Perfect Vortex Beam (LGPVB). LGPVBs have the self-similar property like common Laguerre-Gaussian beams but can self-heal after suffering disturbance and always remain 'perfection' when propagating. Our Fourier-space design not only allows us to shape the LGPVB's propagating intensity at will, but it also gives LGPVB the fascinating potential to arbitrarily self-accelerate while still perfectly propagating, self-similar, and self-healing. This customizable self-healing LGPVB, whose properties inform our most expectations of VBs, offers a better alternative for application scenarios of common VBs in a wide range of areas.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Versatile Non-diffracting Perfect Vortex Beams

The rapid scale broadening and divergence increasing of vortex beams (VBs) with orbital angular momentum (OAM), e.g., Laguerre-Gaussian beams, severely impede the wide applications of VBs ranging from optical manipulation to high-dimensional quantum information communications, which call for VBs to have the same transverse scale and divergence for distinct OAM or even the small vortex ring for large OAM. Non-diffracting beams, on the other hand, that are capable of overcoming diffraction without divergence, are very evocative and indeed appealing in numerous applications including atom optics and medical imaging. Here, we propose theoretically and demonstrate experimentally a brand new type of VB having OAM-independent radii meanwhile holding propagation-invariant without divergence as well as self-healing properties, named non-diffracting perfect vortex beam (NDPVB). We work out a versatile toolkit based on Fourier-space analysis to multidimensionally customize NDPVBs at will so that it is of propagating intensity and phase controllability with intriguing customizable behaviors of self-accelerating, self-similar, and self-rotating. This goes beyond tailoring the transverse plane to the higher-dimensional propagating characteristics in structured light beams. A deeper insight into the internal flow revealed and confirmed that the multidimensional customization of NDPVBs is dominated by inducing corresponding multidimensional internal flow, facilitating our understanding of how our design scheme of propagating properties manipulates the internal flows, unveiling the nature of structure formation and behavior transformation of structured light beams.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Manipulating propagation and evolution of polarization singularities in composite Bessel-like fields

Structured optical fields embedded with polarization singularities (PSs) have attracted extensive attention due to their capability to retain topological invariance during propagation. Many advances in PSs research have been made over the past 20 years in the areas of mathematical description, generation and detection technologies, propagation dynamics, and applications. However, one of the most crucial and difficult tasks continues to be manipulating PSs with multiple degrees of freedom, especially in three-dimensional (3D) tailored optical fields. We propose and demonstrate the longitudinal PS lines obtained by superimposing Bessel-like modes with orthogonal polarization states on composite vector optical fields (VOFs). The embedded PSs in the fields can be manipulated to propagate robustly along arbitrary trajectories, or to annihilate, revive, and transform each other at on-demand positions in 3D space, allowing complex PSs topological morphology and intensity pattern to be flexibly customized. Our findings could spur further research into singular optics and help with applications such as micromanipulation, microstructure fabrication, and optical encryption.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Nonlinear manipulation of orbital angular momentum spectra with second- and third- harmonic generation in a quasi-periodically poled crystal

Optical orbital angular momentum (OAM), as an important degree of freedom of light, has been attracted extensive attention, due to its intrinsic feature of natural discrete infinite dimension. Manipulation of OAM spectra is crucial for many impressive applications from classical to quantum realms, in particular, nonlinear manipulation of OAM spectra. Here we realized the nonlinear manipulation of OAM spectra by using the simultaneous second- and third-harmonic generation in a single nonlinear crystal of quasi-periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate, for fundamental waves with a variety of OAM spectra, especially for customized OAM spectra of the second and third harmonics. The experimental results confirmed the theoretical predictions. Our approach not only provides a novel way to manipulate OAM spectra at new shorter wavelengths that are hard to be directly generated, but also may find new applications towards multiplexing in classical optics and high-dimensional information processing in quantum optics.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Third-harmonic generation of spatially structured light in a quasi-periodically poled crystal

Nonlinear optical processes of spatially structured light, including optical vortex and vector optical fields, have stimulated a lot of interesting physical effects and found a variety of important applications ranging from optical imaging to quantum information processing. However, high harmonic generation of vector optical fields with space-varying polarization states is still a challenge. Here we demonstrate third harmonic generation of spatially structured light including vector optical fields, in a nonlinear Sagnac interferometer containing a carefully designed quasi-periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate for the first time. The experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. Our results will enable to manipulate spatially structured light or photons at new wavelengths and carrying higher orbital angular momentum. Our approach has the potential applications for the research of optical skyrmions and may open up new opportunities to produce spatially structured entangled photons for quantum communication and computation.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2020

Polarization interferometric prism: a versatile tool for generation of vector fields, measurement of topological charges and implementation of a spin-orbit Controlled-Not gate

Optical vortex and vector field are two important types of structured optical fields. Due to their wide applications and unique features in many scientific realms, the generation, manipulation and measurement of such fields have attracted significant interest and become very important topics. However, most ways to generate vector fields have a trade-off among flexibility, efficiency, stability, and simplicity. Meanwhile, an easy and direct way to measure the topological charges, especially for high order optical vortex, is still a challenge. Here we design and manufacture a prism: polarization interferometric prism (PIP) as a single-element interferometer, which can conveniently convert an optical vortex to vector fields with high efficiency and be utilized to precisely measure the topological charge (both absolute value and sign) of an arbitrary optical vortex, even with a high order. Experimentally we generate a variety of vector fields with global fidelity ranging from 0.963 to 0.993 and measure the topological charge of an optical vortex by counting the number of petals uniformly distributed over a ring on the output intensity patterns. As a versatile tool to generate, manipulate and detect the spin-orbital state of single photons, PIP can also work in single-photon regime for quantum information processing. In experiment, the PIP is utilized as a spin-orbit Controlled-Not gate on the generated 28 two-qubit states, achieving the state fidelities ranging from 0.966 to 0.995 and demonstrating the feasibility of the PIP for single photons.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2015

Independent and simultaneous tailoring of amplitude, phase, and complete polarization of vector beams

We present an approach that enables complete control over the amplitude, phase and arbitrary polarization state on the Poincaré sphere of an optical beam in a 4-f system with a spatial light modulator (SLM). The beams can be constructed from a coaxial superposition of x- and y-linearly polarized light, each carrying structured amplitude profile and phase distributions by using an amplitude-modulated mask imposed on the SLM. The amplitude, phase and polarization distribution of vector beams with four free parameters can be tailored independently and simultaneously by the SLM.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2009

Creation of a new vector field and focusing engineering

Recently many methods have been proposed to create the vector fields, due to the academic interest and a variety of attractive applications such as for particle acceleration, optical trapping, particle manipulation, and fluorescence imaging. For the most of the created vector fields, the spatial distribution in states of polarization (SoPs) is dependent of azimuthal angle only. It is very interesting and crucial that if we can introduce the radial controlling freedom, which undoubtedly opens a new way to provide the flexibility for creating the desired vector fields and for fulfilling the requirement on a variety of applications. Here we present a new idea to create a new kind of vector filed with the radial-variant SoPs. This idea also permits to create flexibly vector fields with arbitrarily complex distribution of SoPs, based on a combination of radial and azimuthal dependency. This realization in both principle and experiment is paramount to be able to implement the focusing engineering for applications in a variety of realms. Specially arranging the SoPs of vector fields, purposefully and carefully, is anticipated to lead to new effects and phenomena that can expand the functionality and enhance the capability of optical systems, such as the optical trapping.

physics.optics↗