Observation of optical vortex knots and links associated with topological charge

• DOI: 10.1364/oe.441263
• Publication Date: 2021-10-29T16:30:09Z
• Authors: Jinzhan Zhong; Sheng Liu; Xuyue Guo; Peng Li; Bingyan Wei; Lei Han; Shuxia Qi; Jianlin Zhao
• Keywords: Optical vortex; Robustness

Knots and links, as three-dimensional topologies, have played a fundamental role in many physical fields. Despite knotted vortex loops having been shown to exist the light field, configuration of loop is fixed due their topological robustness, making fields with different topologies independent each other. In this work, we established mapping between torus knots/links integer charge optical vortex, demonstrated change intermediate state fractional charges. Furthermore, experimentally observed transformation process structure by only changing charge. Remarkably, revealed two reconnection mechanisms associated odd or even index topology. We hope these results may provide new insight for study singular optics evolution other