ALBERT

Description: The generation and control of neutron orbital angular momentum (OAM) states and spin correlated OAM (spin-orbit) states provides a powerful probe of materials with unique penetrating abilities and magnetic sensitivity. We describe techniques to prepare and characterize neutron spin-orbit states, and provide a quantitative comparison to known procedures. The proposed detection method directly measures the correlations of spin state and transverse momentum, and overcomes the major challenges associated with neutrons, which are low flux and small spatial coherence length. Our preparation techniques, utilizing special geometries of magnetic fields, are based on coherent averaging and spatial control methods borrowed from nuclear magnetic resonance. The described procedures may be extended to other probes such as electrons and electromagnetic waves.

Description: The quantized orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons offers an additional degree of freedom and topological protection from noise. Photonic OAM states have therefore been exploited in various applications ranging from studies of quantum entanglement and quantum information science to imaging. The OAM states of electron beams have been shown to be similarly useful, for example in rotating nanoparticles and determining the chirality of crystals. However, although neutrons--as massive, penetrating and neutral particles--are important in materials characterization, quantum information and studies of the foundations of quantum mechanics, OAM control of neutrons has yet to be achieved. Here, we demonstrate OAM control of neutrons using macroscopic spiral phase plates that apply a 'twist' to an input neutron beam. The twisted neutron beams are analysed with neutron interferometry. Our techniques, applied to spatially incoherent beams, demonstrate both the addition of quantum angular momenta along the direction of propagation, effected by multiple spiral phase plates, and the conservation of topological charge with respect to uniform phase fluctuations. Neutron-based studies of quantum information science, the foundations of quantum mechanics, and scattering and imaging of magnetic, superconducting and chiral materials have until now been limited to three degrees of freedom: spin, path and energy. The optimization of OAM control, leading to well defined values of OAM, would provide an additional quantized degree of freedom for such studies.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Clark, Charles W -- Barankov, Roman -- Huber, Michael G -- Arif, Muhammad -- Cory, David G -- Pushin, Dmitry A -- England -- Nature. 2015 Sep 24;525(7570):504-6. doi: 10.1038/nature15265.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Joint Quantum Institute, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA. ; Photonics Center and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Massachusetts 02215, USA. ; National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA. ; Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada. ; Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada. ; Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada. ; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1Z8, Canada. ; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26399831" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉