Orbital angular momentum spectrum of Bessel-Gaussian modes, as generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion

Abstract

The Bessel-Gaussian modal spectrum, generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion of a Gaussian pump beam, is considered. This is done by first deriving a general expression for the true probability of detecting specific transverse spatial modes for the pairs of photons generated in a spontaneous parametric down-conversion process. These expressions are applied for Bessel-Gaussian modes in type I phase matching with collinear, degenerate down-converted beams. The result shows that a broad orbital angular momentum spectrum can be obtained for Bessel-Gaussian modes under certain conditions.