Spiniform phase-encoded metagratings entangling arbitrary rational-order orbital angular momentum

Quantum entanglements between integer-order and fractional-order orbital angular momentums (OAMs) have been previously discussed. However, the entangled nature of arbitrary rational-order OAM has long been considered a myth due to the absence of an effective strategy for generating arbitrary rationa...

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Published inLight, science & applications Vol. 7; no. 3; p. 17156
Main Authors Huang, Kun, Liu, Hong, Restuccia, Sara, Mehmood, Muhammad Q, Mei, Sheng-Tao, Giovannini, Daniel, Danner, Aaron, Padgett, Miles J, Teng, Jing-Hua, Qiu, Cheng-Wei
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Springer Nature B.V 09.03.2018
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects
Information science
Light
Microparticles
Optics
Quantum theory
nanophotonics
orbital angular momentum
metasurface
superposition state
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Summary:Quantum entanglements between integer-order and fractional-order orbital angular momentums (OAMs) have been previously discussed. However, the entangled nature of arbitrary rational-order OAM has long been considered a myth due to the absence of an effective strategy for generating arbitrary rational-order OAM beams. Therefore, we report a single metadevice comprising a bilaterally symmetric grating with an aperture, creating optical beams with dynamically controllable OAM values that are continuously varying over a rational range. Due to its encoded spiniform phase, this novel metagrating enables the production of an average OAM that can be increased without a theoretical limit by embracing distributed singularities, which differs significantly from the classic method of stacking phase singularities using fork gratings. This new method makes it possible to probe the unexplored niche of quantum entanglement between arbitrarily defined OAMs in light, which could lead to the complex manipulation of microparticles, high-dimensional quantum entanglement and optical communication. We show that quantum coincidence based on rational-order OAM-superposition states could give rise to low cross-talks between two different states that have no significant overlap in their spiral spectra. Additionally, future applications in quantum communication and optical micromanipulation may be found.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:2047-7538
2095-5545
2047-7538
DOI:10.1038/lsa.2017.156