Arithmetic with optical topological charged in step-wise excited Rb vapour

Abstract

We report on experimentally observed addition, subtraction and cancellation of orbital angular momentum (OAM) in the process of parametric four-wave mixing that results in frequency up- and down-converted emission in Rb vapour. Specific features of OAM transfer from resonant laser fields with different optical topological charges to the spatially and temporally coherent blue light have been considered. We have observed the conservation of OAM in nonlinear wave mixing in a wide range of experimental conditions including a non-collinear geometry of the applied laser beams and furthermore that the coherent blue light accumulates the total orbital angular momentum of the applied laser light. Spectral and power dependences of vortex and plane wave front blue light beams have been compared.