Optical vortex arrays from smectic liquid crystals.

We demonstrate large-area, closely-packed optical vortex arrays using self-assembled defects in smectic liquid crystals. Self-assembled smectic liquid crystals in a three-dimensional torus structure are called focal conic domains. Each FCD, having a micro-scale feature size, produces an optical vortex with consistent topological charge of 2. The spiral profile in the interferometry confirms the formation of an optical vortex, which is predicted by Jones matrix calculations.