Vortex laser arrays with topological charge control and self-healing of defects

Abstract Geometric arrays of vortices found in various systems owe their regular structure to mutual interactions within a confined system. In optics, such vortex crystals may form spontaneously within a resonator. Their crystallization is relevant in many areas of physics, although their usefulness is limited by the lack of control over their topology. On the other hand, programmable devices like spatial light modulators allow the design of nearly arbitrary vortex distributions but without any intrinsic evolution. By combining non-Hermitian optics with on-demand topological transformations enabled by metasurfaces, we report a solid-state laser that generates 10 × 10 vortex laser arrays with actively tunable topologies and non-local coupling dictated by the array’s topology. The vortex arrays exhibit sharp Bragg diffraction peaks, witnessing their coherence and topological charge purity, which we spatially resolve over the whole lattice by introducing a parallelized analysis technique. By structuring light at the source, we enable complex transformations that allow to arbitrarily partition orbital angular momentum within the cavity and to heal topological charge defects, thus realizing robust and versatile resonators for applications in topological optics.