The difficulty of measuring orbital angular momentum

Authors

  • D. Preece
  • T. A. Nieminen The University of Queensland
  • T. Asavei
  • N. R. Heckenberg
  • H. Rubinsztein-Dunlop

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1478/C1V89S1P076

Keywords:

Optical torque, orbital angular momentum

Abstract

Light can carry angular momentum as well as energy and momentum; the transfer of this angular momentum to an object results in an optical torque. The development of a rotational analogue to the force measurement capability of optical tweezers is hampered by the difficulty of optical measurement of orbital angular momentum. We present an experiment with encouraging results, but emphasise the difficulty of the task.

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Published

2011-09-15

Issue

Section

Past Conference Papers