Scalable optical vortex arrays enabled by the decomposition of Laguerre–Gaussian beams into three Hermite–Gaussian modes and multibeam interference

Abstract Optical vortex arrays (OVAs) are a promising platform for massively parallel photonics, but existing generation methods are limited by low power capacity, restricted scalability, or high complexity. We demonstrate a simple and robust method that overcomes these limitations by combining a reformulation of Hermite–Gaussian to Laguerre–Gaussian mode conversion representation with multibeam interference. Using a compact diffractive optical element (DOE)–spiral phase plate (SPP)– $$4f$$ 4 f Fourier optical system, we experimentally generated a triangular lattice of 3070 coherent vortices with a peak power of 58 megawatts (MW). This result demonstrates more than three orders of magnitude improvement in both the vortex number and peak power compared with those of spatial light modulator (SLM)-, metasurface-, and conventional DOE-based OVA systems, establishing a new benchmark for large-scale, high-power vortex array generation. Moreover, our method provides OVA generation with high peak and average power while remaining inherently scalable in the vortex number, wavelength, and input laser power owing to the interference-based DOE–SPP design. This capability not only advances fundamental optical vortex science but also provides a powerful route for applications in parallel laser processing, broadband chiral photonics, massively parallel biophotonics, and future explorations in quantum and nonlinear photonics.