University of Glasgow physicists, working with their Synergy partners at Strathclyde University, have shown that light particles (photons) can be made to carry more information.

Traditionally each particle of light (called a photon) can be made to carry an item of information as a 1 or a 0.

Photons have a characteristic called orbital angular momentum. Now the scientists have shown that it is possible to change this so that each photon can carry much larger amounts of information. They have demonstrated that each photon can carry a 0, 1 ,2 or 3 but in principle this could be further extended to any number.

This research has an immense potential impact in optical communications

Further details have been published at

scientific american

Science

Physical Review Focus

Media Relations Office (media@gla.ac.uk)

For more information contact Professor Miles Padgett: email

m.padgett@physics.gla.ac.uk

First published: 28 June 2002