Orbital angular momentum beams generated by passive dielectric phase masks and their performance in a communication link.

We demonstrate the generation of orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams using high-efficient polarization-insensitive phase masks. The OAM beams generated by the phase masks are characterized in terms of their tolerance to misalignment (lateral displacement or tilt) between the incident beam and phase mask. For certain scenarios, our results show that (a) when the tilt angle is within the range of -20 to +20 deg, the crosstalk among modes is less than -15 dB; and (b) lateral displacement of 0.3 mm could cause a large amount of power leaked to adjacent modes. Finally, OAM beams generated by the phase masks are demonstrated over a two-channel OAM-multiplexing link, each channel carrying a 40 Gbit/s data stream. An optical signal-to-noise-ratio (OSNR) penalty of ∼1 dB is measured without crosstalk at the bit error rate (BER) of 3.8×10-3. With crosstalk, an OSNR penalty of <1.5 dB is observed at the same BER.

Pilot-tone-based self-homodyne detection using optical nonlinear wave mixing.

An all-optical pilot-tone-based self-homodyne detection scheme using nonlinear wave mixing is experimentally demonstrated. Two scenarios are investigated using (1) multiple wavelength-division-multiplexed channels with sufficient power of the pilot tones and (2) a single channel with a low-power pilot tone. The eye diagram and bit error rate of the system are studied by tuning various parameters such as pump power, relative phase, and pilot-to-signal ratio.

Spatial light structuring using a combination of multiple orthogonal orbital angular momentum beams with complex coefficients.

Analogous to time signals that can be composed of multiple frequency functions, we use uniquely structured orthogonal spatial modes to create different beam shapes. We tailor the spatial structure by judiciously choosing a weighted combination of multiple modal states within an orthogonal orbital angular momentum (OAM) basis set, creating desired beam intensity "shapes." The weights of the OAM beams to be combined forms a Fourier pair with the spatial intensity distribution in the azimuthal direction of the resultant beam. As an example, we simulate and experimentally create various beam shapes by designing the weights of the combined OAM beams. We also find that 6× higher localized power, as compared to traditional beam combining, could be achieved by coherently combining nine orthogonal OAM beams.

Experimental demonstration of phase-sensitive regeneration of a binary phase-shift keying channel without a phase-locked loop using Brillouin amplification.

All-optical phase regeneration of a binary phase-shift keying signal is demonstrated at 10-30 Gb/s without a phase-locked loop in a phase-sensitive amplification-based system using Brillouin amplification of the idler. The system achieves phase noise reduction of up to 56% and up to 11 dB OSNR gain at 10-5 bit error rate for the 10 Gb/s signal. The system's sensitivity to different parameters and stability is also evaluated.

Demonstration of Tunable Steering and Multiplexing of Two 28 GHz Data Carrying Orbital Angular Momentum Beams Using Antenna Array.

In line-of-sight communication systems, accurate alignment between the transmitter and receiver is important to guarantee sufficient signal power at the receiver. Such alignment is even more important for orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing systems since misalignment between the transmitter and receiver may cause crosstalk among channels. In this paper, we demonstrate the simultaneous generation and tunable steering of two OAM beams utilising a custom-designed circular antenna array at 28 GHz. We achieve a steering angle of up to 35 degrees from the antenna array normal. We find that (i) the steering angle of the generated OAM beams is limited by the emitting angle of the antenna elements, and (ii) a larger steering angle may degrade the mode purity of the generated OAM beams as well as induce inter-symbol-interference to each of the individual channels. Moreover, we demonstrate the transmission of two 1-Gbaud quadratic phase shift keying (QPSK) signal over the two steerable OAM beams with both multiplexed channels achieved bit error rates (BERs) of <3.8 × 10-3.

Orbital Angular Momentum-based Space Division Multiplexing for High-capacity Underwater Optical Communications.

To increase system capacity of underwater optical communications, we employ the spatial domain to simultaneously transmit multiple orthogonal spatial beams, each carrying an independent data channel. In this paper, we show up to a 40-Gbit/s link by multiplexing and transmitting four green orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams through a single aperture. Moreover, we investigate the degrading effects of scattering/turbidity, water current, and thermal gradient-induced turbulence, and we find that thermal gradients cause the most distortions and turbidity causes the most loss. We show systems results using two different data generation techniques, one at 1064 nm for 10-Gbit/s/beam and one at 520 nm for 1-Gbit/s/beam; we use both techniques since present data-modulation technologies are faster for infrared (IR) than for green. For the 40-Gbit/s link, data is modulated in the IR, and OAM imprinting is performed in the green using a specially-designed metasurface phase mask. For the 4-Gbit/s link, a green laser diode is directly modulated. Finally, we show that inter-channel crosstalk induced by thermal gradients can be mitigated using multi-channel equalisation processing.

Atmospheric turbulence mitigation in an OAM-based MIMO free-space optical link using spatial diversity combined with MIMO equalization.

We explore the mitigation of atmospheric turbulence effects for orbital angular momentum (OAM)-based free-space optical (FSO) communications with multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architecture. Such a system employs multiple spatially separated aperture elements at the transmitter/receiver, and each transmitter aperture contains multiplexed data-carrying OAM beams. We propose to use spatial diversity combined with MIMO equalization to mitigate both weak and strong turbulence distortions. In a 2×2 FSO link with each transmitter aperture containing two multiplexed OAM modes of ℓ=+1 and ℓ=+3, we experimentally show that at least two OAM data channels could be recovered under both weak and strong turbulence distortions using selection diversity assisted with MIMO equalization.

Mode-Division-Multiplexing of Multiple Bessel-Gaussian Beams Carrying Orbital-Angular-Momentum for Obstruction-Tolerant Free-Space Optical and Millimetre-Wave Communication Links.

We experimentally investigate the potential of using 'self-healing' Bessel-Gaussian beams carrying orbital-angular-momentum to overcome limitations in obstructed free-space optical and 28-GHz millimetre-wave communication links. We multiplex and transmit two beams (l = +1 and +3) over 1.4 metres in both the optical and millimetre-wave domains. Each optical beam carried 50-Gbaud quadrature-phase-shift-keyed data, and each millimetre-wave beam carried 1-Gbaud 16-quadrature-amplitude-modulated data. In both types of links, opaque disks of different sizes are used to obstruct the beams at different transverse positions. We observe self-healing after the obstructions, and assess crosstalk and power penalty when data is transmitted. Moreover, we show that Bessel-Gaussian orbital-angular-momentum beams are more tolerant to obstructions than non-Bessel orbital-angular-momentum beams. For example, when obstructions that are 1 and 0.44 the size of the l = +1 beam, are placed at beam centre, optical and millimetre-wave Bessel-Gaussian beams show ~6 dB and ~8 dB reduction in crosstalk, respectively.

Orbital-angular-momentum-multiplexed free-space optical communication link using transmitter lenses.

In this paper, we explore the potential benefits and limitations of using transmitter lenses in an orbital-angular-momentum (OAM)-multiplexed free-space optical (FSO) communication link. Both simulation and experimental results indicate that within certain transmission distances, using lenses at the transmitter to focus OAM beams could reduce power loss in OAM-based FSO links and that this improvement might be more significant for higher-order OAM beams. Moreover, the use of transmitter lenses could enhance system tolerance to angular error between transmitter and receiver, but they might degrade tolerance to lateral displacement.

All optical signal level swapping and multilevel amplitude noise mitigation based on different regions of optical parametric amplification.

All optical signal level swapping and multilevel amplitude noise mitigation are experimentally demonstrated using the three gain regions of optical parametric amplification, i.e., linear, saturation, and inversion. The two-amplitude-shift-keying and eight-quadrature-amplitude-modulation optical communication systems with baud rates of both 10 and 20 Gbaud have been employed to demonstrate the proposed approaches. Less than 1% error-vector-magnitude degradation is observed after signal level swapping. For amplitude noise mitigation, a more than 20% decrease in amplitude error is confirmed.

Experimental demonstration of 20 Gbit/s data encoding and 2 ns channel hopping using orbital angular momentum modes.

We explore the use of the spatial domain as a degree of freedom for data encoding and channel hopping. We experimentally demonstrate data encoding at 20 Gbit/s using four possible orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes. The influence of mode spacing and time misalignment between modal channels on the switching crosstalk and bit-error rates is investigated. We find that the use of adjacent modes with a mode spacing of one introduces an extra power penalty of 3.2 dB compared with a larger mode spacing. Moreover, we demonstrate reconfigurable hopping of a 100 Gbit/s quadrature-phase-shift-keying (QPSK) data channel between four OAM modes with a 2 ns switching guard time. The results show that the power penalties for different hopping rates and mode spacings are less than 5.3 dB.