Spontaneously generated structured light in a coherently driven five-level M-type atomic system

We propose a scheme to analyze the generation and detection of optical vortices via spontaneous emission spectra. We consider a five-level M-type atomic system that interacts with two structured coherent light sources and the vacuum radiation field. The photon emitted via spontaneous decay carries information about the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of the newly generated structured light. It is found that by varying the OAM of the driving fields, one can obtain various unique structured light fields via the interference of the two spontaneous decay channels. This research provides deep insights into how the manipulation of OAM of the driving fields coupled with multilevel atomic systems can enable control over the azimuthal aspects of the spontaneous emission. Considering the rich applications of structured light ranging from optical storage to optical communication, our proposal might be useful in quantum information processing techniques.