Quantum entanglement of angular momentum states with quantum numbers up to 10,010

Photons with a twisted phase front carry a quantized amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM) and have become important in various fields of optics, such as quantum and classical information science or optical tweezers. Because no upper limit on the OAM content per photon is known, they are also int...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2016-11, Vol.113 (48), p.13642-13647
Main Authors: Fickler, Robert, Campbell, Geoff, Buchler, Ben, Lam, Ping Koy, Zeilinger, Anton
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atoms & subatomic particles
Information science
Optics
Physical Sciences
Quantum physics
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Summary:Photons with a twisted phase front carry a quantized amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM) and have become important in various fields of optics, such as quantum and classical information science or optical tweezers. Because no upper limit on the OAM content per photon is known, they are also interesting systems to experimentally challenge quantum mechanical prediction for high quantum numbers. Here, we take advantage of a recently developed technique to imprint unprecedented high values of OAM, namely spiral phase mirrors, to generate photons with more than 10,000 quanta of OAM. Moreover, we demonstrate quantum entanglement between these large OAM quanta of one photon and the polarization of its partner photon. To our knowledge, this corresponds to entanglement with the largest quantum number that has been demonstrated in an experiment. The results may also open novel ways to couple single photons to massive objects, enhance angular resolution, and highlight OAM as a promising way to increase the information capacity of a single photon.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1616889113