We describe a procedure by which a long ($gtrsim 1,mathrm{km}$) optical path through atmospheric turbulence can be experimentally simulated in a controlled fashion and scaled down to distances easily accessible in a laboratory setting. This procedure is then used to simulate a 1-km-long free-space communication link in which information is encoded in orbital angular momentum (OAM) spatial modes. We also demonstrate that standard adaptive optics methods can be used to mitigate many of the effects of thick atmospheric turbulence.
We have experimentally studied the degradation of mode purity for light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) propagating through simulated atmospheric turbulence. The turbulence is modeled as a randomly varying phase aberration, which obeys statistics postulated by Kolmogorov turbulence theory. We introduce this simulated turbulence through the use of a phase-only spatial light modulator. Once the turbulence is introduced, the degradation in mode quality results in cross-talk between OAM modes. We study this cross-talk in OAM for eleven modes, showing that turbulence uniformly degrades the purity of all the modes within this range, irrespective of mode number.
Free-space communication allows one to use spatial mode encoding, which is susceptible to the effects of diffraction and turbulence. Here, we discuss the optimum communication modes of a system while taking such effects into account. We construct a free-space communication system that encodes information onto the plane-wave (PW) modes of light. We study the performance of this system in the presence of atmospheric turbulence, and compare it with previous results for a system employing orbital-angular-momentum (OAM) encoding. We are able to show that the PW basis is the preferred basis set for communication through atmospheric turbulence for a large Fresnel number system. This study has important implications for high-dimensional quantum key distribution systems.
Vortices are whirling disturbances commonly found in nature ranging from tremendously small scales in Bose-Einstein condensates to cosmologically colossal scales in spiral galaxies. An optical vortex, generally associated with a spiral phase, can carry orbital angular momentum (OAM). The optical OAM can either be in the longitudinal direction if the spiral phase twists in the spatial domain or in the transverse direction if the phase rotates in the spatiotemporal domain. In this article, we demonstrate the intersection of spatiotemporal vortices and spatial vortices in a wave packet. As a result of this intersection, the wave packet hosts a tilted OAM that provides an additional degree of freedom to the applications that harness the OAM of photons.
We describe an experimental implementation of a free-space 11-dimensional communication system using orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes. This system has a maximum measured OAM channel capacity of 2.12 bits/photon. The effects of Kolmogorov thin-phase turbulence on the OAM channel capacity are quantified. We find that increasing the turbulence leads to a degradation of the channel capacity. We are able to mitigate the effects of turbulence by increasing the spacing between detected OAM modes. This study has implications for high-dimensional quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. We describe the sort of QKD system that could be built using our current technology.
We demonstrate the spin to orbital angular momentum transfer in the nonlinear mixing of structured light beams. A vector vortex is coupled to a circularly polarized Gaussian beam in noncollinear second harmonic generation under type-II phase match. The second harmonic beam inherits the Hermite-Gaussian components of the vector vortex, however, the relative phase between them is determined by the polarization state of the Gaussian beam. This effect creates an interesting crosstalk between spin and orbital degrees of freedom, allowing the angular momentum transfer between them. Our experimental results match the theoretical predictions for the nonlinear optical response.
Brandon Rodenburg
,Mohammad Mirhosseini
,Mehul Malik
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(2013)
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"Simulating thick atmospheric turbulence in the lab with application to orbital angular momentum communication"
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Brandon Rodenburg
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