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Updated: Sep 2, 2025

The Generation of Higher-order Laguerre-Gauss Optical Beams for High-precision Interferometry
Published on: August 12, 2013
Clarification for the fields of different radially polarized Laguerre-Gaussian light beams
Abstract:
Radially polarized light beams have found many applications in particle manipulation, laser processing, and microscopy. Just as with linear polarization, radially polarized light beams can have higher-order transverse modes that involve Laguerre polynomials. Fields of a radially polarized Laguerre-Gaussian light beam have been calculated before, even beyond the paraxial approximation. However, there are in fact multiple solutions to the paraxial wave equation that involve Laguerre polynomials with different properties and propagation characteristics. We therefore clarify the discrepancies among three valid radially polarized solutions to the paraxial wave equation that involve Laguerre polynomials.
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