Measuring the Topological Charge of Optical Vortices Using Elliptical Airy Phase Mask

Measuring the topological charge(TC) of optical vortices is of great importance in applications of vortex beams. A flexible and convenient method to determine the TC of an optical vortex is proposed by using an elliptical airy phase mask (EAPM). The mask can be embedded into a typical vortex generation setup, in which no additional optical elements are required. The number and the sign of TC are respectively obtained by analyzing the number and the direction of dark stripes in the far-field diffraction patterns of the vortex beam companied with EAPM. It is experimentally demonstrated that this method is able to measure TCs of both conventional and perfect vortex up to ±120.