In this work, we reveal a metasurface-enhanced laser that overcomes a key limitation in lasers: conjugate symmetry of light’s angular momentum. We demonstrate new high-purity orbital angular momentum (OAM) states with quantum numbers reaching 100 and non-symmetric vector vortex beams that lase simultaneously on independent OAM states as much as 90 apart. Our laser conveniently outputs in the visible, offering a compact and power-scalable source that harnesses intra-cavity structured matter for the creation of arbitrary chiral states of structured light.

The work was done in collaboration with the groups of Andrew Forbes (University of the Witwatersrand) and Cheng-Wei Qiu (National University of Singapore). It is published in Nature Photonics.