Mechanical memory for photons with orbital angular momentum

TL;DR

This paper proposes using acoustic surface waves as a memory for photons with orbital angular momentum, enabling high-fidelity transfer of quantum states for quantum information processing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for storing photonic orbital angular momentum in acoustic waves, including the physical mechanism, selection rules, and optimization strategies.

Findings

High fidelity transfer of optical Laguerre-Gaussian states demonstrated theoretically.

The method supports large angular momentum states.

Realistic parameters enable practical implementation.

Abstract

We propose to use an acoustic surface wave as a memory for a photon carrying orbital angular momentum. We clarify the physical mechanism that enables the transfer of information, derive the angular momentum selection rule that must be obeyed in the process, and show how to optimize the optoacoustic coupling. We theoretically demonstrate that high fidelities can be achieved, using realistic parameters, for the transfer of a coherent optical Laguerre-Gaussian state, associated with large angular momentum, to a mechanical shear mode. Our results add a significant possibility to the ongoing efforts towards the implementation of quantum information processing using photonic orbital angular momentum.