Measuring orbital angular momentum of light with a torsion pendulum

We report experiments aimed at measuring the orbital angular momentum of light by means of a torsion pendulum, in the spirit of the classical spin angular momentum experiment by Beth (1936) but using present-day technology. Although our set-up has adequate sensitivity and resolution to measure orbital angular momentum of light, the systematic errors that are caused by the inherent asymmetry in the conversion of orbital angular moment remain a problem.

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