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.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 130402 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 116 |
| Issue number | 13 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 1 2016 |
| Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Physics and Astronomy(all)
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Mirhosseini, M., Magaña-Loaiza, O. S., Chen, C., Hashemi Rafsanjani, S. M., & Boyd, R. W. (2016). Wigner distribution of twisted photons. Physical Review Letters, 116(13), [130402]. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.130402