Brown, Tom

Date:   Tuesday, Apr. 9, 2019
Time:   11:00
Place:   ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HPZ E 35
Host:    Lukas Novotny

Creating and Measuring Complex Polarization States: Routes from Classical to Quantum Measurements

Tom Brown
University of Rochester, USA

Spatially complex polarization states combine both spin and angular momentum of light in ways that open up new approaches to the use of polarization in metrology and in polarization measurement itself. One particular complex state -- the Full Poincaré Beam -- shows intriguing properties, one of which is the mapping of the polarization state of a particular photon to its registration location on a 2d sensor. A related state reveals a Full Poincaré equivalent of a Bessel beam. In this talk I will provide an overview of work related to these states and pose some questions regarding the interferometric measurement of the angular momentum of a single photon, whether it is possible and what it could mean for quantum metrology.