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© 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd. We thank Dr J C G de Sande and Dr J Serna for their valuable suggestions. This work has been supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain, project FIS2007-63396, and project CCG07-UCM/ESP-3070., Starting from the expression for the quality parameter of a superposition of two general fields, the case of beams that can be written in terms of the polarization basis introduced by Gori is investigated. Different types of this class of beam are studied and compared. In particular, spirally polarized beams are considered. As an example, polarized Bessel-Gauss beams are analyzed in detail., Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain, Depto. de Óptica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

©2004 IOP Publishing Ltd. One of the authors (G P) acknowledges support from project BFM2001-1356 of the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain., We provide a simple theoretical study of beams non-uniformly polarized across their transverse sections which can be introduced in undergraduate optics courses. In order to generate such beams we propose to use a slightly convergent (or divergent) linearly and uniformly polarized beam impinging on an anisotropic uniaxial material with the beam propagation direction along the optic axis. Analytical expressions for the Jones vector, Stokes parameters, ellipticity and azimuth at each point of the transverse section, perpendicular to the propagation direction, are obtained at the output of this system. By means of these parameters a detailed description of the state of polarization across the transverse profile is given., Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain, Depto. de Óptica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

©2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This work has been supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain, under project FIS2004-1900, and by the Universidad Complutense-Comunidad de Madrid, project No. 910335 (2007). We thank Dr. Julio Serna for his valuable suggestions., Several global parameters are proposed to characterize the radial and azimuthal polarization content of non-uniformly totally polarized beams. Such figures of merit can be written and measured in terms of two Stokes parameters, and also from the data at the output of either a radial or an azimuthal dichroic polarizer, integrated throughout the beam profile. The measurability of the proposed parameters has also been experimentally checked., Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Comunidad de Madrid, Depto. de Óptica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. The research work leading to this paper was supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura of Spain, Projects PB97-0295 and BFM 2001–1356, within the framework of EUREKA projects EU-1269 and EU-2359. The curves plotted in Figs. 26 and 27 were numerically computed by Drs. S. Bosch and A. Carnicer. We would also like to thank Prof. H. Weber, Mr. A. Vázquez and Mr. G. Mann from the Optisches Institut at the Technische Universität in Berlin for their continuous interest and support all along the experimental work described in Section 5.4. We are also grateful to Dr. J. Serna for helpful discussions and for his assistance in the preparation of this manuscript. One of the authors (G.P.) wishes to thank Prof. F. Gori, Dr. M. Santarsiero and Dr. R. Borghi for helpful discussions concerning PGSM sources., We present an approach for describing the spatial structure of partially polarized light fields. Unlike the treatments usually encountered in the literature, in which the polarization state is represented by position-dependent functions, the formalism shown here characterizes the polarization by means of a family of measurable overall parameters averaged over the transverse spatial region where the beam intensity reaches significant values. Generalized degrees of polarization are introduced to evaluate the uniformity of the spatial distribution of the polarization state of the beam-like field. The possibility of improvement and optimization of the quality of a polarized laser beam (understood as the general usefulness of such field for collimation and focussing) is analyzed by employing first-order optical systems. Finally, attention is briefly devoted to non-paraxial electromagnetic vector beams, whose Parametric description of their polarization properties constitutes, at present, a challenge for theoreticians., Ministerio de Educación y Cultura of Spain, European Union EUREKA projects, Depto. de Óptica, Fac. de Ciencias Físicas, TRUE, pub

We study polarization switching and hysteresis in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) subject to an orthogonal optical injection, such that the polarization of the injected light is perpendicular to that of the free-running VCSEL. We use the framework of the spin-flip model to characterize the polarization state of the VCSEL as a function of the frequency detuning. With appropriated injection conditions, the orthogonal polarization turns on and locks to the injected field. Increasing and decreasing the detuning across the two locking boundaries results either in narrow or wide hysteresis cycles, or even in irreversible switching. These results are in a good agreement with recent experimental observations., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)