Abstract

We propose a Poincaré sphere (PS) analogue for optical vortex knots. The states on the PS analogue represent the light fields containing knotted vortex lines in three-dimensional space. The state changes on the latitude and longitude lines lead to the spatial rotation and scale change of the optical vortex knots, respectively. Furthermore, we experimentally generate and observe these PS analogue states. These results provide new insights for the evolution and control of singular beams, and can be further extended to polarization topology.

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