Measuring the fractional orbital angular momentum of a vortex light beam by cascaded Mach–Zehnder interferometers

We design an interferometric method for measuring the fractional orbital angular momentum of a vortex light beam by cascading Mach–Zehnder interferometers. The validity of this method is verified by simulation and theoretical analysis. We demonstrate the method experimentally for two stages of cascaded Mach–Zehnder interferometers, which can measure the fractional topological charge up to two. The experimental results agree with the theoretical results well. Since fractional orbital angular momentum may have a potential application in the field of quantum information, one can utilize the method to detect them easily and precisely.