Beecroft Building
Prof. Charles Clark, NIST, University of Maryland
Abstract
It was about 50 years ago today, when "Dislocations in wave trains" [1] came into play. Twenty years on, "Dislocations" became a nineties hit following the ingenious experiments of Soskin et al. [2], that showed the promise of applications of twisted or structured light with non-vanishing orbital angular momentum about its propagation axis. [3-5] Modern use cases for such modalities include increased communication bandwidth for 6G applications.[6] Quantum particle beams can also be shaped by analogue tools of optics. I shall present recent results for neutrons, made possible by microfabricated synthetic holograms containing millions of forked dislocation gratings of the type envisaged by Soskin, et al. [7]
[1] "Dislocations in wave trains," J. F. Nye and M. V. Berry, received 17 January 1973, published in Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 366, 165 - 190 (1974)
[2] "A tribute to Marat Soskin," M. V. Berry et al., J. Opt. 23, 050201 (2021)
[3] "Roadmap on structured light," H. Rubinsztein-Dunlop, et al., J. Opt. 19, 013001 (2017)
[4] "Roadmap on structured waves," K. Bliokh et al., arXiv:2301.05349 (submitted 13 January 2023)
[5] "Optical orbital angular momentum," S. M. Barnett, M. Babiker and M. J. Padgett, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 375, 20150444 (2017)
[6] "Utilizing multiplexing of structured THz beams carrying orbital-angular-momentum for high-capacity communications," H. Zhou, X. Su, A. Minoofar, R. Zhang, K. Zou, H. Song, K. Pang, H. Song, N. Hu, Z. Zhao, A. Almaiman, S. Zach, M. Tur, A. F. Molisch, H. Sasaki, D. Lee, and A. E. Willner, Optics Express 30, 25418 (2022)
[7] "Experimental realization of neutron helical waves," D. Sarenac, M. E. Henderson, H. Ekinci, C. W. Clark, D. G. Cory, L. DeBeer-Schmitt, M. G. Huber, C. Kapahi, D. A. Pushin, Sci. Adv. 8, eadd2002 (18 November 2022)