Fresnel entropic characterization of optical Laguerre-Gaussian beams

A novel approach, based on Fresnel tomography, to determine the entropy of two-dimensional optical Laguerre-Gaussian beams is presented and discussed. Numerical evaluations of the entropy distribution in the phase space associated with Laguerre-Gauss modes are presented. It is shown that the concept of Fresnel entropy provides a general criterion for studying and characterizing the vorticity of Laguerre-Gauss modes. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.