Formation of linearly polarized light with axial symmetry by use of space-variant subwavelength gratings.

We present a novel method for forming linearly polarized axially symmetric beams with various polarization orders that is based on computer-generated space-variant subwavelength gratings. We introduce and experimentally demonstrate that our space-variant polarization state manipulations are accompanied by a phase modification of a helical structure that results from the Pancharatnam-Berry phase. We have verified the polarization properties of our gratings for laser radiation at 10.6-microm wavelength.