Abstract
Orbital angular momentum (OAM), one of the most recently discovered degrees of freedom of light beam field has fundamentally revolutionized optical physics and its technological capabilities. Optical beams with OAM have enabled a large variety of applications, including super-resolution imaging, optical trapping, classical and quantum optical communication, and quantum computing, to mention a few. To enable these and several other emerging applications, optical beams with OAM have been generated using a variety of methods and technologies, such as a simple astigmatic lens pair, one-/two-dimensional holographic optical elements, three-dimensional spiral phase plates, optical fibers, and recent entrants such as metasurfaces. All these techniques achieve spatial light modulation and can be implemented with either passive elements or active devices, such as liquid crystal on silicon and digital micromirror devices. Many of these devices and technologies are not only used for the generation of amplitude phase-polarization structured light beams but are also capable of analyzing them. We have attempted to encompass a wide variety of such technologies as well as a few emerging methodologies, broadly categorized into generation and detection protocols. We address the needs of scientists and engineers who desire to generate/detect OAM modes and are looking for the technique (active or passive) best suited for their application.
Highlights
The fact that light carries spin angular momentum (SAM) of σħ (σ 1⁄4 Æ1) was known as early as 1909, when Poynting demonstrated that a circularly polarized beam of light could cause a piece of birefringent material suspended on a thin wire to rotate about its center.[1]
Light beams with spin and orbital angular momentum (OAM) and arising due to spin–orbit interaction (SOI) are so diverse and are emerging so rapidly that an overview once every few years has become a norm and well deserving
This review article is an attempt to classify this area of research from a point of view that addresses the needs of scientists and engineers who want to generate/detect AM modes and are looking for the best technique for their desired application
Summary
The fact that light carries spin angular momentum (SAM) of σħ (σ 1⁄4 Æ1) was known as early as 1909, when Poynting demonstrated that a circularly polarized beam of light could cause a piece of birefringent material suspended on a thin wire to rotate about its center.[1]. The past three decades have seen tremendous growth of such optical beams from being a mere scientific curiosity to being a key enabler in a wide variety of cutting-edge applications, such as super-resolution imaging, optical trapping, and classical and quantum optical communications. In all these applications, the first step is the generation of an OAM mode. Generation of phase-polarization structured light beam fields in two-dimensional (2-D) is a growing field in optical science and its applications span research areas, including polarization imaging, data encoding, and polarization multiplexing This is discussed in the first section. The methods for detection and sorting of OAM modes will be analyzed and reviewed in this paper
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