Orbital angular momentum of photons and the entanglement of Laguerre-Gaussian modes

Autor(en)

Mario Krenn, Mehul Malik, Manuel Erhard, Anton Zeilinger

Abstrakt

The identification of orbital angular momentum (OAM) as a fundamental property of a beam of light nearly twenty-five years ago has led to an extensive body of research around this topic. The possibility that single photons can carry OAM has made this degree of freedom an ideal candidate for the investigation of complex quantum phenomena and their applications. Research in this direction has ranged from experiments on complex forms of quantum entanglement to the interaction between light and quantum states of matter. Furthermore, the use of OAM in quantum information has generated a lot of excitement, as it allows for encoding large amounts of information on a single photon. Here we explain the intuition that led to the first quantum experiment with OAM fifteen years ago. We continue by reviewing some key experiments investigating fundamental questions on photonic OAM and the first steps into applying these properties in novel quantum protocols. In the end, we identify several interesting open questions that could form the subject of future investigations with OAM.

Organisation(en)

Quantenoptik, Quantennanophysik und Quanteninformation

Externe Organisation(en)

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW)

Journal

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

Band

375

Anzahl der Seiten

21

ISSN

1364-503X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2015.0442

Publikationsdatum

02-2017

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103025 Quantenmechanik, 103026 Quantenoptik

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeiner Maschinenbau, Allgemeine Physik und Astronomie, Allgemeine Mathematik

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/7517091e-4df1-43cc-82c7-a3a27fce7288