Orbital angular momentum of single photons: revealing quantum fundamentals

In 1992, Allen et al. (Allen L, Beijersbergen MW, Spreeuw RJC, Woerdman JP. 1992 Orbital angular momentum of light and the transformation of Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes. Phys. Rev. A 45, 8185-8189. (doi:10.1103/physreva.45.8185)) published their seminal paper on the orbital angular momentum of light, drawing together seemingly unrelated themes and ideas in optics. This breakthrough initiated a new area of optical science concerning the physics and applications of structured light beams. This orbital angular momentum is an important concept for both classical and quantum science, especially where the framing in terms of angular momentum demystifies some of the quantum properties of light. Loudon's own work (Loudon R. 2003 Theory of the forces exerted by Laguerre-Gaussian light beams on dielectrics. Phys. Rev. A 68, 013806. (doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.68.013806)) in this area focused on the interactions between light and matter where the orbital angular momentum extended his studies from linear impulses to rotational torques.This article is part of the theme issue 'The quantum theory of light'.