Characterization of Orbital Angular Momentum Quantum States Empowered by Metasurfaces

Abstract

Twisted photons can in principle carry a discrete unbounded amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM), which are of great significance for quantum communication and fundamental tests of quantum theory. However, the methods for characterization of the OAM quantum states present a fundamental limit for miniaturization. Metasurfaces can exploit new degrees of freedom to manipulate optical fields beyond the capabilities of bulk optics, opening a broad range of novel and superior applications in quantum photonics. Here we present a scheme to reconstruct the density matrix of the OAM quantum states of single photons with all-dielectric metasurfaces composed of birefringent meta-atoms. We have also measured the Schmidt number of the OAM entanglement by the multiplexing of multiple degrees of freedom. Our work represents a step toward the practical application of quantum metadevices for the measurement of OAM quantum states in free-space quantum imaging and communications.