Wigner distribution of twisted photons

Authors

Mohammad Mirhosseini, University of Rochester Institute of Optics
Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza, University of Rochester Institute of Optics
Changchen Chen, University of Rochester Institute of Optics
Seyed Mohammad Hashemi Rafsanjani, University of Rochester Institute of Optics
Robert W. Boyd, University of Rochester Institute of Optics

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-1-2016

Abstract

We present the first experimental characterization of the azimuthal Wigner distribution of a photon. Our protocol fully characterizes the transverse structure of a photon in conjugate bases of orbital angular momentum (OAM) and azimuthal angle. We provide a test of our protocol by characterizing pure superpositions and incoherent mixtures of OAM modes in a seven-dimensional space. The time required for performing measurements in our scheme scales only linearly with the dimension size of the state under investigation. This time scaling makes our technique suitable for quantum information applications involving a large number of OAM states.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Physical Review Letters

Recommended Citation

Mirhosseini, M., Magaña-Loaiza, O., Chen, C., Hashemi Rafsanjani, S., & Boyd, R. (2016). Wigner distribution of twisted photons. Physical Review Letters, 116 (13) https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.130402