Identification of the topological defects of optical indicatrix orientation in CaB₄O₇glasses

Abstract

We develop an experimental method for the identification of the topological defects of optical indicatrix orientation, which appear in glass samples with residual mechanical stresses. The criteria needed to determine the sign of the strength of topological defects are formulated. The method is verified on the example of a non-annealed CaB4O7 glass sample that manifests spatially inhomogeneous residual stresses. We have found that at least seven topological defects of optical indicatrix orientation exist under the condition when a light beam propagates through a parallelepiped-shaped glass sample. The strengths of all the defects detected by us are equal to +1/2.

Singular optics and topological photonics

“…Grigoriev and co-authors analytically describe the spatial distribution of the polarization of a second harmonic of the beam with a singularity reflected from the surface of an isotropic gyrotropic medium [62]. Vasylkiv et al report on the experimental method for identification of the topological defects of optical indicatrix orientation, which appear in the glass samples with residual mechanical stresses, via generation of polarization optical singularities and optical vortices in the propagating optical beams [63].…”