OVERVIEW
One fundamental characteristic of any light beam is its spatial shape, with the well-known Gaussian beam being the most common shape that appears naturally in countless applications in science and technology. However, it has been known from the early years since the invention of the lasers that light beams can adopt multiple shapes, usually referred to as spatial modes. It took some time to appreciate that specific properties of some of these modes can be instrumental for new applications, or for enhancing the performance of existing ones. The advent and widespread diffusion of technologies to tailor the shape of light beams, such as spatial light modulators (SLM) and digital micromirror devices (DMD), have helped finding new applications to shape the spatial mode of laser beams. SLM’s and DMD’s can generate light beams with intricate wavefronts that can increase the bit rate of current optical communication systems, improve the resolution of imaging systems towards reaching its quantum limits, and provide a better treatment for certain retinal lesions.
In the five talks of this conference, outstanding scientists working with light beams embedded into multiple spatial modes will talk about how these modes contribute better performances of instruments and experiments in different fields and with different aims. They will explain how to generate the beams they need, why they do it and what they can achieve with them. They will also share with us their vision of what we can expect in the near future from new efforts to tailor the shape of photons in new ways.
