High efficiency SHG of orbital angular momentum light in an external cavity

Traditional methods for generating orbital angular momentum (OAM) light include holographic diffraction gratings, vortex phase plate and spatial light modulator. In this article, we report a new method for high efficient OAM light generation. By pumping an external cavity contains a quasi phase matching nonlinear crystal with a fundamental OAM carrying light and properly aligning the cavity, mode matching between the pump light and the cavitys higher order Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) mode is achieved, conversion efficiency up to 10.3 percentage have been obtained. We have demonstrated that the cavity can stably operate at its higher order LG mode just as Gaussian mode for the first time. The SHG light possesses a doubled OAM value with respect to the pump light. The parameters that affect the beam quality and conversion efficiency are discussed in detail. Our work opens a brand new field in laser optics, and makes the first step toward high efficiency OAM light processing.