Abstract

As we celebrate 30 years since light's orbital angular momentum (OAM) was connected to its spatial structure, we reflect on the advances made in fundamental science and applications alike. A driving trend in recent times has been the creation of OAM directly from lasers, for potentially tuneable, compact and high-power sources of OAM light. In this tutorial style review we give a summary of the basics of OAM and its creation at the source, pointing to the seminal advances that have been made, the present state-of-the-art, and the open challenges that remain.

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