We are interested in studying dielectric and morphologic properties of materials by exploiting polarization and wavefront analyses in the Visible and Infrared domain. At fundamental level, this entails in-depth investigation of the mechanisms underpinning the optical spin and orbital angular momentum transfer between light and matter.
The research activities within this line mainly include:
i. methods and devices for both wavefront and polarization shaping;
ii. activity i. is powered by designing and fabricating tailored liquid-crystal- based Spatially Varying Axis Plates (SVAPs) based on Pancharatnam-Berry or Geometric Phase optical elements; well-known examples include q-plates (azimuthal waveplates with a topological singularity at their center), L-plates, polarization-switchable lenses, Modulated Poincaré Beam (MPB) generators and so on;
iii. methods and devices for wavefront sensing based on geometric phase, such as Geometric Phase Shearing Interferometry (GPSI) in several geometries: linear shearing, based on either 𝜦-plates (prism-like plates) or cylindrical lenses; radial shearing, based on either 𝜸-Plates (axicon-like) or spherical lenes, just to mention a few;
activities i, ii, iii serve to measure bulk inhomogeneities of both isotropic and anisotropic materials as well as morphological properties (local curvature, edges, etc.) and roughness of boundary surfaces;
activity iii underpins methods and devices for detecting and measuring the spin and orbital angular momentum of light or the optical topological charge, for applications to optical information and communications.