Vortex-free laser beam with an orbital angular momentum

Abstract

We show that if one cylindrical lens is placed in the Gaussian beam waist and another cylindrical lens is placed at some distance from the first one and rotated by some angle, then the laser beam after the second lens has an orbital angular momentum (OAM). An explicit analytical expression for the OAM of such a beam is obtained. Depending on the inter-lens distance, the OAM can be positive, negative, or zero. Such a laser beam has no isolated intensity nulls with a singular phase and it is not an optical vortex, but has an OAM. By choosing the radius of the beam waist of the source Gaussian beam, the focal lengths of the lenses and the distance between them, it is possible to generate a vortex-free laser beam equivalent to an optical vortex with a topological charge of several hundreds.