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We present a method of photon orbital angular momentum selection at very low light levels using spatial interference between a strong local oscillator field and a weak beam. By using Fourier phase recovery techniques familiar in classical interferometry, we can experimentally obtain a quantum-limited Q distribution with a standard deviation consistent with the quantum noise floor. Further, by projecting the complex Fourier peak on a Laguerre–Gauss basis, we can distinguish states of different orbital angular momentum with high fidelity for small numbers of counts per acquisition frame. The noise equivalent photoelectron count for this measurement is 10 − 5 counts per pixel per frame.

Understanding and modeling the propagation of polarized light through thick, space variant birefringent media is important in both fundamental and applied optics. We present and experimentally evaluate two methods to model the off axis propagation of polarized light through a thick stress-engineered optic (SEO). First, we use a differential equation solving method, which utilizes the analytic expression for the Jones matrix of the SEO leading to a numerical solution for the output electric field. Then we present a geometric method to obtain similar results with much less computational complexity. Finally, a comparison is done between the data and the simulations.

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