Driven by their potential applications, vectorial optical fields with spatially inhomogeneous states of polarization within the cross section have drawn significant attention recently. This work intends to review some of the latest development of this rapidly growing field of optics and offer a general overview of the current status of this field in a few areas. Mathematical descriptions of generalized vectorial optical fields are provided along with several special examples. A time-reversal methodology for the creation of a wide variety of exotic optical focal fields with prescribed characteristics within the focal volume is presented. Recently developed methods for the generation of vectorial optical fields that utilize fiber lasers, digital lasers, vectorial optical field generator, metasurfaces or photoalignment liquid crystals are summarized. The interactions of these vectorial optical fields with various micro- and nano-structures are presented and the prospects of their potential applications are discussed. The connection of vectorial optical fields with higher dimensionality in quantum information is summarized.

在其潜在应用的推动下，横截面内具有空间不均匀偏振态的矢量光场最近引起了极大的关注。这项工作旨在回顾这个快速发展的光学领域的一些最新发展，并概述该领域在几个领域的现状。提供了广义矢量光场的数学描述以及几个特殊示例。提出了一种时间反转方法，用于在焦体积内创建具有规定特征的各种奇异光学焦场。总结了最近开发的利用光纤激光器、数字激光器、矢量光场发生器、超曲面或光取向液晶生成矢量光场的方法。介绍了这些矢量光场与各种微米和纳米结构的相互作用，并讨论了它们的潜在应用前景。总结了矢量光场与高维量子信息的联系。