Optically spatial information selection with hybridly polarized beam in atomic vapor

Vector beams with spatially variant polarization have attracted much attention in recent years, with potential applications in both classical optics and quantum optics. In this work, we study a polarization selection of spatial intensity distribution by utilizing a hybridly polarized beam as a coupling beam and a circularly polarized beam as a probe beam in87 Rb atom vapor. We experimentally observe that the spatial intensity distribution of the probe beam after passing through atoms can be modulated by the hybridly polarized beam due to the optical pumping effect. Then, the information loaded in the probe beam can be designedly filtrated by an atomic system with a high extinction ratio. A detailed process of the optical pumping effect in our configurations and the corresponding absorption spectra are presented to interpret our experimental results, which can be used for the spatial optical information locally extracted based on an atomic system, which has potential applications in quantum communication and computation.