Measuring orbital angular momentums of light based on petal interference patterns

Abstract

We demonstrate an interferometric method to measure the topological charges of the vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentums (OAMs). The petal interference patterns are generated by combining modulated vortex beams and an unmodulated incident Gaussian beam reflected by a spatial light modulator. The number of petals is in agreement with the value of OAM that the modulated beam carries, by which we analyze the characteristic of interference patterns of integer OAM beams, including intensity profiles, phase profiles, and hologram structures. We also uncover the principle of how radial parameter l influences the hollow radius of OAM beams. Beams carrying non-integer orbital angular momentums are visualized with our method, from which we observe the evolution of a speckle generated by the decimal part of holograms. A kind of hologram is designed to prove that the petal near the singularity line is separated owing to the diffraction enhancement. All the experiment results agree well with the simulated results.