A high-efficient method for generating radially and azimuthally polarized Bessel beams using biaxial crystals

As was shown previously, in propagation of a circularly polarized Bessel light beam along the optical axes of a biaxial crystal, there takes place the conversion of the order of Bessel function. In this paper, a new result is presented which is obtained by varying the polarization state of an input beam. Namely, a linearly polarized beam can be transformed into a beam with the radial or azimuthal polarization state. At that the order-transformation also occurs. The switching between radial and azimuthal polarization states of the output beam is performed by the proper switching between two orthogonal linear polarization states of the input beam. The efficiency of polarization conversion is high and can be practically full at an appropriate choice of the cone angle of the input beam or crystal length.