Experimentally measuring the mode indices of Laguerre-Gaussian beams by weak measurement

As a special experimental technique, weak measurements extract very little information from the measured system and does not cause the measured state to collapse. When coupling the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) state with a well-defined pre- and post-selected system of a weak measurement process, there will be an indirect interconnection between the expected value of coordinate operators of the final state and the mode indices of the measured LG state. The mode of the light is impacted very slightly after the weak measurement. Based on this we propose an experiment scheme and have managed to experimentally measure the mode indices of LG beams spanning from l = -6 to l = +6, p = 0 to p = +8 accurately with the final intensity distributions approximatly at their origin. (c) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement