Structured light is attracting significant attention for its diverse applications in both classical and quantum optics. The so-called vector vortex beams display peculiar properties in both contexts due to the nontrivial correlations between optical polarization and orbital angular momentum. Here we demonstrate a new, flexible experimental approach to the classification of vortex vector beams. We first describe a platform for generating arbitrary complex vector vortex beams inspired to photonic quantum walks. We then exploit recent machine learning methods—namely, convolutional neural networks and principal component analysis—to recognize and classify specific polarization patterns. Our study demonstrates the significant advantages resulting from the use of machine learning-based protocols for the construction and characterization of high-dimensional resources for quantum protocols.
Taira Giordani, Alessia Suprano, Emanuele Polino, Francesca Acanfora, Luca Innocenti, Alessandro Ferraro, Mauro Paternostro, Nicolò Spagnolo, and Fabio Sciarrino. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 160401 – Published 20 April 2020
Link: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.160401