Optical spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion in inhomogeneous anisotropic media

Optical spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion in inhomogeneous anisotropic media

March 3, 2006 | L. Marrucci, C. Manzo, and D. Paparo
The paper by L. Marrucci, C. Manzo, and D. Paparo demonstrates an experimental optical process where the spin angular momentum of a circularly polarized light beam is converted into orbital angular momentum, generating helical modes with wavefront helicity controlled by the input polarization. This phenomenon occurs in optically inhomogeneous and anisotropic media, involving the Pancharatnam-Berry geometrical phases. The authors use a uniaxial birefringent medium, specifically a nematic liquid crystal, to achieve this conversion. They show that the input polarization of the light controls the sign of the orbital helicity of the output wavefront, with the magnitude fixed by the birefringence axis geometry. The experimental setup involves a Mach-Zender interferometer to measure the wavefront shape of the light emerging from the medium, confirming the generation of helical modes with the predicted orbital angular momentum. This process could have significant applications in multi-state information encoding for classical and quantum communication and computation.The paper by L. Marrucci, C. Manzo, and D. Paparo demonstrates an experimental optical process where the spin angular momentum of a circularly polarized light beam is converted into orbital angular momentum, generating helical modes with wavefront helicity controlled by the input polarization. This phenomenon occurs in optically inhomogeneous and anisotropic media, involving the Pancharatnam-Berry geometrical phases. The authors use a uniaxial birefringent medium, specifically a nematic liquid crystal, to achieve this conversion. They show that the input polarization of the light controls the sign of the orbital helicity of the output wavefront, with the magnitude fixed by the birefringence axis geometry. The experimental setup involves a Mach-Zender interferometer to measure the wavefront shape of the light emerging from the medium, confirming the generation of helical modes with the predicted orbital angular momentum. This process could have significant applications in multi-state information encoding for classical and quantum communication and computation.
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