Holographic generation of laser beam with phase singularity

Summary form only. A phase singularity is a structure such that integration of the phase gradient along a closed path around the axis yields 2m/spl pi/, where m is the charge of the singularity. Laser beams with such structures have attracted much interest in recent years. We have previously reported the fabrication of blazed transmission phase holograms to generate beams with phase singularities having charges up to 10. The hologram structure was fabricated on a thin polymer layer on a glass substrate using an electron-beam lithography technique.