imprint:
Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2020
Published in:Nature Communications
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1038/s41467-020-18931-6
ISSN:
2041-1723
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Optical rotation, a form of optical activity, is a phenomenon employed in various metrological applications and industries including chemical, food, and pharmaceutical. In naturally-occurring, as well as structured media, the integrated effect is, however, typically small. Here, we demonstrate that, by exploiting the inherent and stable spin-orbit interaction of orbital angular momentum fiber modes, giant, scalable optical activity can be obtained, and that we can use this effect to realize a new type of wavemeter by exploiting its optical rotary dispersion. The device we construct provides for an instantaneous wavelength-measurement technique with high resolving power <jats:italic>R</jats:italic> = 3.4 × 10<jats:sup>6</jats:sup> (i.e., resolution < 0.3 pm at 1-μm wavelengths) and can also detect spectral bandwidths of known lineshapes with high sensitivity.</jats:p>