This book focuses on optical vortices, including beams carrying orbital angular momentum and vector beams. It presents an overview of, and the latest research on this novel type of optical beam, which is a hot topic in the domain of modern optics, especially in optical communication and beam manipulation.

Summarizing the fundamentals of optical vortices, it discusses their characterization and propagation, and focuses on the generation of vortices such as vortex-arrays, and the detection of vortices and their orbital angular momentum state. It also comprehensively examines the adaptive compensation systems, as well as vector beams and polarization vortices with anisotropic polarization distributions. Further it provides a detailed description of perfect vortices with beam diameters independent of the angular momentum. This book is intended for researchers, engineers and graduate students working in the field of optics and laser beam applications.

Dr. Shiyao Fu is currently an associate professor at Beijing Institute of Technology. He received his PhD in electronic science and technology from Beijing Institute of Technology in 2019. His current research interests cover complex structured fields manipulation, novel solid-state lasers, and their applications in critical engineering. He has published one book and more than 50 peer-reviewed papers. He has 18 authorized patents. He was selected for the national postdoctoral program for Innovative Talents. He won the Wang Da-Heng Optics Prize, and his doctoral dissertation was recognized by the Chinese Institute of Electronics. He is a senior member of the Chinese Optical Society.

Chunqing GAO has been a Professor at the School of Optics and Photonics, Beijing Institute of Technology, China since 2001. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Optics from the same institute in 1989 and 1992, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree in Physics from Technical University Berlin, Germany, in 1999. His research interests include novel laser devices and techniques, vortex beams and vector beams, and their applications. He has published two books and 260 scientific papers in journals and conferences and holds 30 patents in the fields of optics and lasers. He was a member of the Council Board of the Chinese Optical Society (COS) from 2006-2016. He is the deputy director of the Chinese Electronics Society's sub-committee Opto-Electronics and Quantum Electronics, a standing member of the sub-committee Opto-Electronics systems in COS, and a member of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the International Society of Optics and Photonics (SPIE). He is also editors of the journals Acta Photonica Sinica, Laser and Infrared, Infrared and Laser Engineering, Journal of Applied Optics.

Fundamentals of beam propagation and optical vortices.- Generation of optical vortices.- Optical vortex arrays.- Detection of optical vortices.- Propagation of optical vortices and compensation by adaptive optics.- Vectorial vortex beams.- Perfect vortices.- Applications of optical vortices.