Structured beams and nano-manipulations

In 1974, Nye and Berry described the topological structure of the wave front as a screw-type dislocation in the wave trains, analogous to crystal defects, for the first time. In 1992, Allen and co-workers recognized that each photon of a vortex beam carries orbital angular momentum (OAM), ℓℏ, where ℓ describes the topological charge of the beam. Thus far, singularities in wave fields have been studied from fluid dynamics and plasma physics to optics and photonics, and even to electrons and neutron, etc. Meanwhile, the size of structured beam has been extended from bulk to nanoscale. The key property of a vortex beam is the existence of a quantized topological charge, which has found numerous applications in optical manipulation and trapping, optical communications, imaging, sensing, quantum science and astronomy, etc. This thematic series aims to explore the state-of-the-art advances of structured beams, both fundamental and applications.

Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Fundamental principles of structured beams, such as optical vortex beams and electron vortex beams.
• Generation and propagation of structured beams.
• Manipulation of optical and plasmonic vortex beams using metasurfaces.
• Structured beams for optical manipulation.
• Light-matter interaction
• Structured beams for imaging, sensing, microscopy, etc.

Lead Guest Editor
Yuanjie Yang, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

Guest Editor
Harald Schneider, Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden Rossendorf, Germany
Dave Phillips, University of Exeter, UK

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