Measurement of the orbital-angular-momentum spectrum of fields with partial angular coherence using double-angular-slit interference

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Mehul Malik, Sangeeta Murugkar, Jonathan Leach, Robert W. Boyd

Published: 05 Dec 2012, Last Modified: 06 Nov 2025Physical Review AEveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY-SA 4.0
Abstract: We implement an interferometric method using two angular slits to measure the orbital-angular-momentum (OAM) mode spectrum of a field with partial angular coherence. As the angular separation of the slits changes, an interference pattern for a particular OAM mode is obtained. The visibility of this interference pattern as a function of angular separation is equivalent to the angular correlation function of the field. By Fourier transforming the angular correlation function obtained from the double-angular-slit interference, we are able to calculate the OAM spectrum of the partially coherent field. This method has potential application for characterizing the OAM spectrum in high-dimensional quantum information protocols.