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Phase distribution of Hermite–Gauss (HG) beams generated by a gas laser is investigated experimentally by studying their interference with a plane wave and diffraction by a single slit by selecting pairs of bright lobes with different phases. Experimentally recorded interference and diffraction profiles support HG mode phase profiles expounded on in this paper. We find that the phase difference between one bright lobe and another is not simply zero orπbut increases (or decreases) uniformly in steps ofπas the number of zeros between them increases, in agreement with analytic function theory. An immediate application of this phase profile is that an HG mode can serve as a phase ruler with bright lobes as markers in steps ofπ.more » « less
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A method based on the tracking of the peaks of interference fringes as a function of time-dependent analyzer setting is used to detect the Pancharatnam phase of light. The advantage of this method is demonstrated by observations of the nonlinearity of the Pancharatnam phase for certain paths on Poincare sphere where the fringe visibility reduces to almost zero. We also describe variations of this experiment with structured light beams, where the Pancharatnam phase leads to linear or nonlinear rotation of flower-pattern or spiral-shape interference fringes.more » « less
