Synthesis of 360° cylindrical optical wavefronts with controlled polarization

A procedure for generating secondary electromagnetic sources with controlled polarization on the surface of a cylinder is proposed and carried out experimentally. The method is based on reflecting a light beam from the outer surface of a conical mirror with an apex angle of 45°. Uniformly and non-uniformly completely polarized incident light beams are employed. The reflected light is, in general, non-uniformly polarized. We focus on cylindrical vector input fields, in particular those with radial and azimuthal polarization, because they produce a cylindrical wavefront whose polarization is linear and parallel to the cylinder axis or tangent to the cylinder surface, respectively. Measurements for input fields with different polarization states are presented.