Structured light solid-state laser sources

Abstract Structured light beams, in contrast to conventional Gaussian beams, typically possess unique characteristics such as orbital angular momentum, exotic wavefronts and Stokes phase singularities in polarization textures. These characteristics have led to the use of structured light in applications including optical trapping and manipulation, free space optical and quantum communications, nano and microfabrication, environmental optics, and astrophysics. Furthermore, new classes of structured light fields, such as topological states of light (optical quasiparticles), and geometrical modes with particle-like and wave-like duality, are being applied across numerous scientific and practical applications. We review recent progress on the development of structured light laser sources based on solid-state laser technologies; in particular, we focus on the nonlinear optical processes which are used to expand their wavelength diversity.