We study the propagation of probe pulses carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) in a crystal of molecular magnets characterized by a double-$\mathrm{\Lambda }$ light-matter coupling scheme. The model is based on the four-wave mixing (FWM) of applied fields interacting with the magnetic dipole moment of the molecular magnets. We consider the light-matter interaction under the situation where a weak probe field carries an optical vortex and investigate the exchange of optical vortices between different frequencies via the FWM in the microwave region. The propagation of OAM beams with nonzero radial indices is then explored. It is found that the conservation of both azimuthal and radial indices is satisfied over the swapping of OAM states of light. Superimposing two initially weak OAM modes with different topological charges creates specific vortex beams with a very characteristic form. The resulting beam contains a central vortex as well as several singly charged peripheral vortices distributed at the same radial distance from the center of the light beam. This complex pattern of vortices arises because the intensity radius of two interfering OAM modes is different. It is shown that the boundary region of intensity dominance of two OAM modes can be controlled by the molecular magnets parameters and strong cw electromagnetic fields. Our proposed scheme may provide a route to study the solid systems suitable for quantum technologies as well as for OAM exchange devices for quantum information processing.

• Received 12 April 2021
• Revised 3 August 2021
• Accepted 9 September 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.094432