Photonic orbital angular momentum with controllable orientation |
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Authors: | Chenhao Wan Jian Chen Andy Chong Qiwen Zhan |
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Institution: | School of Optical-Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China;School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China;Department of Electro-Optics and Photonics, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469, USA;Department of Physics, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469, USA |
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Abstract: | Vortices are whirling disturbances, commonly found in nature, ranging from tremendously small scales in Bose-Einstein condensations to cosmologically colossal scales in spiral galaxies. An optical vortex, generally associated with a spiral phase, can carry orbital angular momentum (OAM). The optical OAM can either be in the longitudinal direction if the spiral phase twists in the spatial domain or in the transverse direction if the phase rotates in the spatiotemporal domain. In this article, we demonstrate the intersection of spatiotemporal vortices and spatial vortices in a wave packet. As a result of this intersection, the wave packet hosts a tilted OAM that provides an additional degree of freedom to the applications that harness the OAM of photons. |
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Keywords: | orbital angular momentum spatiotemporal vortex spatial vortex spiral phase |
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