Anisotropic polarization modulation for the production of arbitrary Poincaré beams

In this paper, we show a universal scheme to produce arbitrary Poincaré beams of arbitrary positions (ρ, σ) on the surface of arbitrary order Poincaré spheres with high efficiency. The proposed arrangement consists of two liquid-crystal spatial light modulators (SLMs), a half-wave plate (HWP), and a quarter-wave plate. For the generated Poincaré beams, the longitude ρ is determined by the holograms on the second SLM, while the latitude σ is controlled by the HWP. In the experiment, the generated Poincaré beams are analyzed through a polarizer and a special parameter S₃∕S₀, showing good agreement with prediction.