[Nateman]

What Is the difference between orbital angular momentum and circular polarization?

[Jonty30]

I give up.

Tell me the difference between orbital angular momentum and circular polarization.

I’m expecting a real knee slapper of an answer.

[Cboldt]

Circular polarized light has a "helical lead" that IS the wavelength. It is actually two light beams of the same frequency, colinear, one with horizontal and the other with vertical polarization.

I take OAM as having variable "helical lead" for a given wavelength of light. Not sure how this is made.

[fruser1]

The polarization is electrical - wave model; the momentum is kinetic - photon model.

[Nifster]

The orbital angular momentum of light (OAM) is the component of angular momentum of a light beam that is dependent on the field spatial distribution, and not on the polarization. It can be further split into an internal and an external OAM. The internal OAM is an origin-independent angular momentum of a light beam that can be associated with a helical or twisted wavefront. The external OAM is the origin-dependent angular momentum that can be obtained as cross product of the light beam position (center of the beam) and its total linear momentum.