Abstract

Light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) became widely available for experimental study only recently, after the work of Allen et al. [1] who showed that light carrying an integer amount of OAM -also known as twisted light (TL)- may be generated in the laboratory using conventional laser beams. This finding was followed by research on many aspects related to the physics of TL and the interaction with matter. Nevertheless, the interaction with solid state systems, important for technological applications, is only beginning to be explored [2,3]. We present here an analysis of the interaction of TL with a bulk semiconductor and predict that the light induces, to first order, an electric current having no analog in the motion of atoms subject to TL.

© 2009 IEEE