UC Berkeley  February 25, 2021 The quantum Hall effect involves electrons confined to a two-dimensional plane subject to a perpendicular magnetic field, but it also has a photonic analogue. Using heterostructures based on structured semiconductors on a magnetic substrate, a team of researchers in the US (UC San Diego, UC Berkeley) introduced compact and integrated coherent light sources of large orbital angular momenta based on the photonic quantum Hall effect. The photonic quantum Hall effect enables the direct and integrated generation of coherent orbital angular momenta beams of large quantum numbers from light travelling in leaky circular orbits at the […]