Recent advances in spin-orbit photonic technologies

Spin-orbit photonic technologies are a powerful resource to structure light in different degrees of freedom, allowing for simultaneous control of the polarization and spatial component of the beam. A key example is the q-plate, a liquid-crystal device enabling fast and accurate polarization-conditioned beam shaping. Here, we report on recent advances in the field, specifically, the observation of spin-orbit coupling in crystallized ascorbic acid, the generalization of q-plates to dual-q-plates, and a new class of liquid-crystal devices working as photonic quantum simulators.