Multidimensional phase singularities in nanophotonics

TLDR

Light can be structured into vortices that carry optical angular momentum, adding new communication modes beyond wavelength, amplitude, phase, polarization, and pulse length, and recent nanophotonic platforms enable on‑chip generation and detection of these vortices. These advances are expected to enable applications in classical and quantum information processing. Ni et al.

Abstract

Exploiting light with a twist Light possesses several degrees of freedom that can be exploited to encode information. In addition to wavelength, amplitude, phase, polarization, and pulse length, light can also be structured into vortices. These vortices carry optical angular momentum, effectively opening up many other modes as communication channels. Ni et al . review advances made in the nanophotonic platform where optical vortices can be generated and detected on-chip. These developments are expected to find application in classical and quantum information processing. —ISO