Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 053601 (2002) [4 pages]Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nature of the Orbital Angular Momentum of a Light Beam |
PRL Celebrates 50 Years
This Week's Milestone Letters are from 1984: |
A. T. O'Neil, I. MacVicar, L. Allen, and M. J. Padgett
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Scotland
Received 28 June 2001; published 16 January 2002
We explain that, unlike the spin angular momentum of a light beam which is always intrinsic, the orbital angular momentum may be either extrinsic or intrinsic. Numerical calculations of both spin and orbital angular momentum are confirmed by means of experiments with particles trapped off axis in optical tweezers, where the size of the particle means it interacts with only a fraction of the beam profile. Orbital angular momentum is intrinsic only when the interaction with matter is about an axis where there is no net transverse momentum.
©2002 The American Physical Society
URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v88/e053601
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.053601
PACS: 42.50.Ct
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