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Updated: May 18, 2026

Spectral and Angle-Resolved Magneto-Optical Characterization of Photonic Nanostructures
Published on: November 21, 2019
Observation of orbital angular momentum sidebands due to optical reflection
W Löffler1, Andrea Aiello, J P Woerdman
1Huygens Laboratory, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9504, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands.
Abstract:
We investigate how the orbital angular momentum of a paraxial light beam is affected upon reflection at a planar interface. Theoretically, the unavoidable angular spread of the beam leads to orbital angular momentum sidebands, which are found to be already significant for a modest beam spread (0.05). In analogy to the polarization Fresnel coefficients, we develop an analytical theory based upon spatial Fresnel coefficients; this allows a straightforward prediction of the strength of the sidebands. We confirm this by experiment and numerical simulation.
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