An application of the topological optical phases in holography

The possibility of introducing a phase between light beams, which may be very close together, provided the beams have a different state of polarisation, is discussed. The peculiarity of this `topological phase´ is applied to holography. Individual polarisation encoding of the light waves outgoing from the hologram is achieved. The advantage of the topological phase method is its clear representation on the Poincare sphere which allows the invention of new polarising interference devices