Measurement of the Spiral Spectrum of Entangled Two-Photon States

We implement an interferometric method to measure the orbital angular momentum (OAM) spectrum of photon pairs generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. In contrast with previous experiments, which were all limited by the modal capacity of the detection system, our method operates on the entire down-conversion cone and reveals the complete distribution of the generated OAM. In this geometry, new features can be studied. We show that the phase-matching conditions can be used as a tool to enhance the azimuthal Schmidt number and to flatten the spectral profile, allowing the efficient production of high-quality multidimensional entangled states. ©2010 The American Physical Society