Bridging on-demand vectorial beams generation and programmable OAM combs

Abstract The manipulation of fundamental properties of light, particularly polarization and orbital angular momentum (OAM), has opened new possibilities in modern optics, with representative structures including vector vortex beams (VVBs) and OAM combs. However, current generation methods face significant challenges in integrating "large-scale sparse OAM control" and "polarization manipulation of dense OAM combs" in vectorial light fields. Here, a unified strategy for generating high-dimensional vectorial light fields across both few-mode OAM beams and broadband OAM combs is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The classical VVB interference theory is extended to OAM comb superimposition. By utilizing a single spatial light modulator (SLM) in a split-screen architecture, collaborative control of large OAM range tuning from 2 to 63 modes and spatially variable polarization is achieved, encompassing few-mode and broadband OAM domains. Via precise manipulation of sub-combs on their polarizations, OAM spectra and intensity ratio, broadband vector OAM combs with dynamically programmable l from -31 to + 31 and maximum efficiency of 96.99% are achieved, breaking through the dimensional limitations of current scalar OAM comb techniques. Convenient switching among different vector OAM combs is realized through hologram replacement, eliminating the requirements for complex hardware reconfiguration. The polarization-phase decoupling property enables experimental validation of multi-dimensional information encoding/decoding. This work may not only provide a versatile platform for constructing novel structured lights, but also open new frontiers in in large-capacity optical communication and high-dimensional quantum photonics.