Quantization of electromagnetic modes and angular momentum on plasmonic nanowires

Quantum theory of surface plasmons is very important for studying the interactions between light and different metal nanostructures in nanoplasmonics.In this work,using the canonical quantization method,the SPPs on nanowires and their orbital and spin angular momentums are investigated.The results show that the SPPs on nanowire carry both orbital and spin momentums during propagation.Later,the result is applied to the plasmonic nanowire waveguide to show the agreement of the theory.The study is helpful for the nano wire based plasmonic interactions and the quantum information based optical circuit in the future.

A new method of calculating the orbital angular momentum spectra of Laguerre-Gaussian beams in channels with atmospheric turbulence

Studying orbital angular momentum（OAM） spectra is important for analyzing crosstalk in free-space optical（FSO）communication systems. This work offers a new method of simplifying the expressions for the OAM spectra of Laguerre-Gaussian（LG） beams under both weak/medium and strong atmospheric turbulences. We propose fixing the radius to the extreme point of the intensity distribution, review the expression for the OAM spectrum under weak/medium turbulence,derive the OAM spectrum expression for an LG beam under strong turbulence, and simplify both of them to concise forms.Then, we investigate the accuracy of the simplified expressions through simulations. We find that the simplified expressions permit accurate calculation of the OAM spectrum for large transmitted OAM numbers under any type of turbulence. Finally,we use the simplified expressions to analytically address the broadening of the OAM spectrum caused by atmospheric turbulence. This work should contribute to the concise theoretical derivation of analytical expressions for OAM channel matrices for FSO-OAM communications and the analytical study of the laws governing OAM spectra.

Torsion pendulum driven by the angular momentum of light: Beth’s legacy continues

The optical angular momentum is ubiquitous to the science of light,especially whenever the polarization state and the spatial distribution of the phase are involved,which are most often associated with the spin and orbital parts of the total angular momentum,respectively.Notably,the independent introduction of these two contributions to the total optical angular momentum was accompanied by suggestions regarding the possible detection of their mechanical effects using a torsion pendulum.Today,the classical and quantum mechanical aspects of spin and orbital angular momentum of light and their mutual coupling remain active research topics offering exciting perspectives for photonic technologies.Our brief historical overview shows how the torsion pendulum has accompanied scientific advances on mechanical effects based on the angular degrees of freedom of light since Beth’s pioneering contribution published in 1935.

Tailoring spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices

Plasmonic vortices confining orbital angular momentums to surface have aroused wide research interest in the last decade.Recent advances of near-field microscopes have enabled the study on the spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices,providing a better understanding of optical orbital angular momentums in the evanescent wave regime.However,these works only focused on the objective characterization of plasmonic vortex and have not achieved subjectively tailoring of its spatiotemporal dynamics for specific applications.Herein,it is demonstrated that the plasmonic vortices with the same topological charge can be endowed with distinct spatiotemporal dynamics by simply changing the coupler design.Based on a near-field scanning terahertz microscopy,the surface plasmon fields are directly obtained with ultrahigh spatiotemporal resolution,experimentally exhibiting the generation and evolution divergences during the whole lifetime of plasmonic vortices.The proposed strategy is straightforward and universal,which can be readily applied into visible or infrared frequencies,facilitating the development of plasmonic vortex related researches and applications.

Non-probe compensation of optical vortices carrying orbital angular momentum

In this paper, we demonstrate a scheme for compensating distorted optical vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum. By inputting the intensity profile into the Gerchberg–Saxton algorithm [Optik 35, 237(1972)], the pre-compensation phase mask can be acquired. No additional probe beams are introduced, and all the computing is aiming at the transmitted vortex beams. The distorted vortex beams are investigated experimentally before and after pre-compensation, showing favorable compensation performance. This scheme will find applications in the areas of rotation detection, optical communications, and so on.

Recognizing the orbital angular momentum(OAM)of vortex beams from speckle patterns

The orbital angular momentum(OAM)of vortex beams offers a new degree for information encoding,which has been applied to optical communications.OAM measurement is essential for these applications,and has been realized in free space by several methods.However,these methods are inapplicable to estimate the OAM of vortex beams directly from the speckle patterns in the exit end of a multimode fiber(MMF).To tackle this issue,we design a convolutional neural network(CNN)to realize 100%accuracy recognition of two orthogonally polarized OAM modes from speckle patterns.Moreover,we demonstrate that even when the speckle patterns are cropped to only 1/64 of the original patterns,the recognition accuracy of the designed neural network is still higher than 98%.We also study the recognition accuracy of cropped speckles in different areas of speckle patterns to verify the feasibility of OAM recognition after cropping.The results demonstrate that recognizing the OAMs of two orthogonally polarized vortex beams from only a portion of speckle patterns in the exit end of an MMF is feasible,offering the potential to construct a 1×N data transmission scheme.

The Wigner distribution functions of coherent and partially coherent Bessel-Gaussian beams

Based on the integral representation of the Bessel functions and the generating function of the Tricomi function, an analytical expression of the Wigner distribution function （WDF） for a coherent or partially coherent Bessel Gaussian beam is presented. The reduced two-dimensional WDFs are also demonstrated graphically, which reveals the dependence of the reduced WDFs on the beam parameters.

Propagation properties of electromagnetic fields in elliptic dielectric hollow fibres and their applications

We numerically calculate and analyse the electromagnetic fields, optical intensity distributions, polarization states and orbital angular momentum of some elliptic hollow modes in an elliptic dielectric hollow fiber （EDHF） by using Mathieu functions, and also calculate the optical potential of the blue-detuned eHE11 mode evanescent-light wave for ^85Rb atoms, including the position-dependent van der Waals potential, and discuss briefly some potential applications of our EDHF in atom and molecule optics, etc. Our study shows that the vector electric field distributions of the odd modes in the cross section of the EDHF are the same as that of the even modes and with different boundary ellipses by rotating an angle of π/2, and the orbital angular momentum （OAM） of single HE （EH） mode is exactly equal to zero, while that of dual-mode in the EDHF is fractional in h, and has a sinusoidal oscillation as z varies. The EDHF can be used to produce various elliptic hollow beams, even to generate and study various atomic vortices with a fractional charge and its fractional quantum Hall effect in atomic Bose Einstein condensate, and so on.

Optical trapping with structured light: a review

Optical trapping describes the interaction between light and matter to manipulate micro-objects through momentum transfer.In the case of 3D trapping with a single beam,this is termed optical tweezers.Optical tweezers are a powerful and noninvasive tool for manipulating small objects,and have become indispensable in many fields,including physics,biology,soft condensed matter,among others.In the early days,optical trapping was typically accomplished with a single Gaussian beam.In recent years,we have witnessed rapid progress in the use of structured light beams with customized phase,amplitude,and polarization in optical trapping.Unusual beam properties,such as phase singularities on-axis and propagation invariant nature,have opened up novel capabilities to the study of micromanipulation in liquid,air,and vacuum.We summarize the recent advances in the field of optical trapping using structured light beams.

Low-light-level spin–orbit splitting via structured light cross-Kerr interaction in coherent atomic media

We explore the spin–orbit coupling(SOC) mechanism for structured light in coherent atomic media with low-light-level cross-Kerr nonlinearity. Using the five-level M-type electromagnetic induced transparency(EIT) system as a prototype, we show that spin–orbit splitting for a weak spinor image can be generated by a weak trigger field carrying orbital angular momentum(OAM) at low-light intensity. By quantum-optical analogy, the paraxial focusing and defocusing of the two pseudo-spin states in the spinor image can be governed by a Pauli-like equation. More importantly, by changing the EIT parameters, especially the topological charge of the weak trigger field, the SOC-induced radial quantization of the spinor image can be rather significant,giving rise to positive or negative OAM-OAM mode separation in free space. This suggests that the separation can be flexibly controlled due to strong image-vortex interaction based on fewphoton cross-Kerr modulation. Our findings may have the potential for all-optical OAM multiplexing and demultiplexing of structured light fields toward few-photon quantum control and multimode communication.

Generation of all-fiber femtosecond vortex laser based on NPR mode-locking and mechanical LPG

An all-fiber femtosecond vortex laser based on common fiber components is constructed. It can produce femtosecond orbital angular momentum modes whose time pulse width is 398 fs. The topological charge of output orbital angular momentum （OAM） modes from this laser can be adjusted among 0, ＋1, and -1 easily while it is also easy to convert between continuous OAM modes and pulse OAM modes.

Gravitational field around black hole induces photonic spin-orbit interaction that twists light

The spin-orbit interaction （SOI） of light has been intensively studied in nanophotonics because it enables sensitive control of photons＇ spin degree of freedom and thereby the trajectories of the photons, which is useful for applications such as signal encoding and routing. A recent study [Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 166803 （2016）] showed that the SOI of photons manifests in the presence of a gradient in the permittivity of the medium through which the photons propagate; this enhances the scattering of circularly polarized light and results in the photons propagating along twisted trajectories. Here we theoretically predict that, because of the equivalence between an inhomogeneous dielectric medium and a gravitational field demonstrated in transformation optics, a significant SOI is induced onto circularly polarized light passing by the gravitational lens of a black hole. This leads to： i） the photons to propagate along chiral trajectories if the size of the black hole is smaller than the wavelength of the incident photons; ii） the resulting image of the gravitational lens to manifest an azimuthal rotation because of these chiral trajectories. The findings open for a way to probe for and discover subwavelength-size black holes using circularly polarized light.

Directly generating vortex beams in the second harmonic by a spirally structured fundamental wave

Based on nonlinear wave mixing, we experimentally propose a scheme for directly generating optical orbital angular momentum(OAM) by a spirally structured fundamental wave interacting with a nonlinear medium, in which the nonlinear susceptibilities are homogenous. In the experiment, the second-harmonic generation of a fundamental wave carrying positive(negative) integers and fractional OAM states was investigated. This study presents a convenient approach for dynamic control of OAM of vortex beams, which may feature their applications in optical manipulation and optical communication.