An interferential method for generating polarization-rotatable cylindrical vector beams

Cylindrical vector beam is one of the polarized beams whose states of polarization are spatially various and cylindrical symmetric. Owing to their peculiar focusing property, cylindrical vector beam has attracted more and more attentions. In this paper, we propose a method to generate cylindrical vector beam with rotatable polarization in free space. Two spatially homogeneous polarized beams are modified properly into spatially varied polarized beam by the vortex phase plate respectively. Then two phase-coded beams are combined together to generate a cylindrical vector beam. In addition, the polarization directions of cylindrical beams can be rotated continuously to a desired direction. The polarization states of the cylindrical vector beam are calculated by Johns matrix. The focusing properties are simulated by MATLAB.