Evolution of orbital angular momentum in three-dimensional structured light

Abstract

Light beams with an azimuthal phase dependency of $e^{i\ell \varphi }$ have helical phase fronts and thus carry orbital angular momentum (OAM), a strictly conserved quantity with propagation. Here, we engineer quasi three-dimensional (3D) structured light fields and demonstrate unusual scenarios in which OAM can vary locally in both sign and magnitude along the beam's axis, in a controlled manner, under free-space propagation. To reveal the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon, we perform full modal decomposition and reconstruction of the generated beams to describe the evolution of their intrinsic OAM and topological charge with propagation. We show that topological transition and the associated variation in local OAM rely on the creation, movement, and annihilation of local vortex charges without disturbing the global net charge of the beam, thus conserving the global OAM while varying it locally. Our results may be perceived as an experimental demonstration of the Hilbert Hotel paradox, while advancing our understanding of topological deformations in general.

References in corpus (9)

• Optical spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion in inhomogeneous anisotropic media
• Electromagnetic Force and Momentum
• Electromagnetic Angular Momentum
• Twisted Photons: New Quantum Perspectives in High Dimensions
• Conservation of orbital angular momentum in air core optical fibers
• Creation and characterization of vector vortex modes for classical and quantum communication
• Longitudinal patterning of twisted light
• The Quantum Hilbert Hotel
• Detection of Bessel beams with digital axicons