Space: the less explored dimension of light

This talk will describe the propagation, control and manipulation of light that manifests spatial complexity. In free space and bulk media, such higher order eigenstates of light possess intriguing characteristics such as the ability to carry orbital angular momentum and the ability to self-heal. Upon confinement, either by focusing them, or by guiding them in fibers, even more exotic behaviour, akin to spin-orbit interactions of confined electrons in atomic and molecular systems, is observed. Such attributes, which yield new selection rules for nonlinear optics as well new regimes for light transport, have spawned applications as diverse as microscopy, classical and quantum networking, optical computing and laser-power scaling. This talk will describe recent applications in fibers after elucidating the fundamental phenomena that make singular light beams behave dramatically differently from commonly encountered Gaussian-shaped beams of light.