Physics

Optical vortex

Topological quantum number

Optics

Vortex

Beam (structure)

Angular momentum

Interferometry

Diffraction

Pinhole (optics)

Phase (matter)

Quantum mechanics

Thermodynamics

Photonics Research

A multipoint interferometer (MI), uniformly distributed point-like pinholes in a circle, was proposed to measure the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of vortex beams [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 , 100801 ( 2008 ) PRLTAO 0031-9007 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.100801 ], which can be used for measuring OAM of light from astronomical sources. This is a simple and robust method; however, it is noted that this method is only available for low topological charge because the diffracted intensity patterns for vortex beams with higher OAM will repeat periodically. Here, we propose an improved multipoint interferometer (IMI) for measuring the OAM of an optical vortex with high topological charge. The structure of our IMI is almost the same as the MI, but the size of each pinhole is larger than a point in the MI. Such a small change enables each pinhole to get more phase information from the incident beams; accordingly, the IMI can distinguish any vortex beams with different OAM. We demonstrate its viability both theoretically and experimentally.

Measuring high orbital angular momentum of vortex beams with an improved multipoint interferometer