Measurement of the orbital angular momentum density of light by modal decomposition

We demonstrate a versatile method for the measurement of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) density of an optical field. By performing a modal decomposition with digital holograms, we reconstruct the full optical field from a small set of single-point intensity measurements, from which optical vortices, global OAM and OAM density can be derived. We validate the method on defined OAM-carrying beams yielding fidelities in the OAM density measurement of up to 99%, and subsequently apply the technique to unknown fields from optical fibers. © IOP Publishing and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.