Fig. 1: Prediction of stable and unstable VAV (vortex-antivortex) lattice configurations.
From: Optical vortex-antivortex crystallization in free space
a The left panel is the designed lattice structure (the Gaussian host field is not shown here), with alternating vortices and antivortices placed on the 2D grid. Red and blue elements designate the optical vortices and antivortices. The right panel illustrates the robust propagation of the lattice in the free space. b An unstable lattice configuration, which does not feature uniform alternation of the vortices and antivortices. c and d The phase structures of the VAV lattices introduced in panels a and b, respectively, produced by the analytical solution (Eq. (2)) with w = 250 μm and L = 1.24w. The panels c and d depict the evolution of the lattice phase patterns at different propagation distances: z = −0.65zR, −0.22zR, 0.22zR and 0.65zR, where zR is the Rayleigh length.
