Physical Review A
Orbital angular momentum analysis of high-dimensional entanglement
Wouter H. J. Peeters, Emile Verstegen, Martin P. van Exter
Abstract
We describe a simple experiment that is ideally suited to analyze the high-dimensional entanglement contained in the orbital angular momenta (OAM) of entangled photon pairs. For this purpose we use a two-photon interferometer with a built-in image rotator and measure the two-photon visibility versus rotation angle. Mode selection with apertures allows one to tune the dimensionality of the entanglement; mode selection with spiral phase plates and fibers allows detection of a single OAM mode. The experiment is analyzed in two different ways: either via the continuous two-photon amplitude function or via a discrete modal (Schmidt) decomposition of this function. The latter approach proves to be very fruitful, as it provides a complete characterization of the OAM entanglement.