Quantized Rotation of Atoms from Photons with Orbital Angular Momentum
Quantized Rotation of Atoms from Photons with Orbital Angular Momentum
We demonstrate the coherent transfer of the orbital angular momentum of a photon to an atom in quantized units of variant Planck's over 2pi, using a 2-photon stimulated Raman process with Laguerre-Gaussian beams to generate an atomic vortex state in a Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms. We show that the …