Design, fabrication and characterization of a spiral phase plate

Abstract

Light beams with a helical phase front carry an orbital angular momentum which has many promising applications in several fields (microscopy, biology, astronomy, etc.). Spiral phase plates provide an efficient and cost-effective means to generate such beams. In this work, micro-scale spiral phase plates were designed and fabricated using two-photon polymerization 3D printing. The optical performance of the devices was characterized by analysing the diffraction patterns. Devices with topological charges of 1, and a number of 5 and 10 discrete phase steps were successfully manufactured and tested.