Octave-wide supercontinuum generation of light-carrying orbital angular momentum

Entangled quantum states are not separable, regardless of the spatial separation of their components. This is a manifestation of an aspect of quantum mechanics known as quantum non-locality. An important consequence of this is that the measurement of the state of one particle in a two-particle entangled state defines the state of the second particle instantaneously, whereas neither particle possesses its own well-defined state before the measurement. Experimental realizations of entanglement have hitherto been restricted to two-state quantum systems, involving, for example, the two orthogonal polarization states of photons. Here we demonstrate entanglement involving the spatial modes of the electromagnetic field carrying orbital angular momentum. As these modes can be used to define an infinitely dimensional discrete Hilbert space, this approach provides a practical route to entanglement that involves many orthogonal quantum states, rather than just two Multi-dimensional entangled states could be of considerable importance in the field of quantum information, enabling, for example, more efficient use of communication channels in quantum cryptography.

The linear Doppler shift is widely used to infer the velocity of approaching objects, but this shift does not detect rotation. By analyzing the orbital angular momentum of the light scattered from a spinning object, we observed a frequency shift proportional to product of the rotation frequency of the object and the orbital angular momentum of the light. This rotational frequency shift was still present when the angular momentum vector was parallel to the observation direction. The multiplicative enhancement of the frequency shift may have applications for the remote detection of rotating bodies in both terrestrial and astronomical settings.