A full Poincaré (FP) beam possesses all possible optical spin states in its cross section, which constitutes an optical analog of a skyrmion. Until now FP beams have been exclusively generated using bulk optics. Here we propose a generation scheme of an FP beam based on an optical microring cavity. We position two different angular gratings along with chiral lines on a microring cavity and generate an FP beam as a superposition of two light beams with controlled spin and orbital angular momenta. We numerically show that FP beams with tailored skyrmion numbers can be generated from this device, opening a route for developing compact light sources with unique optical spin fields.

• Received 29 June 2020
• Accepted 5 April 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023055

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society