Combining the multiple degrees of freedom of photons has become topical in quantum communication and information processes. This provides advantages such as increasing the amount of information that is be packed into a photon or probing the wave-particle nature of light through path-polarisation entanglement. Here we present two experiments that show the advantages of using hybrid entanglement between orbital angular moment (OAM) and polarisation. Firstly, we present results where high dimensional quantum key distribution is demonstrated with spatial modes that have non-separable polarisation-OAM DOF called vector modes. Secondly, we show that through OAM-polarisation entanglement, the traditional which-way experiment can be performed without using the traditional physical path interference approach.

Date Published: 25 August 2017
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 10347, Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation XIV, 1034711 (25 August 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2274361

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10347:
Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation XIV
Kishan Dholakia; Gabriel C. Spalding, Editor(s)