Propagation characteristics of orbital angular momentum modes at 810 nm in step-index few-mode fibers

In free-space or in optical fibers, orbital angular momentum(OAM) multiplexing for information transmission has been greatly developed. The light sources used were well coherent communication bands, and the fibers used were customized. Here, we use an 810 nm femtosecond laser to generate optical vortices carrying OAM and then feed them into two kinds of commercial step-index few-mode fibers to explore the transmission characteristics of OAM modes. We also propose a method without multiple-input multiple-output digital signal processing to identify the input OAMs. It is of great guiding significance for high-dimensional quantum information experiments via the OAMs as a degree of freedom, using the light generated by the spontaneous parametric down-conversion as the source and the commercial fibers for information transmission.     

Generation of a large orbital angular momentum beam via an optical fiber winding around a curved path and its application

Many papers have been published on the study of orbital angular momentum(OAM) of the laser modes based on the Laguerre–Gaussian(LG) beam and helical phase plate or rotating cylindrical lens, and the principal ray of the LG beam remains straight line. These ways are difficult to get a large OAM modes. In this paper, we propose a novel method to prepare a large OAM modes when the light propagates through a optical fiber winding around a curved path, and establish a theoretical framework based on the principal ray path changing. Firstly, we investigate three kinds of winding structure.Secondly, based on the analytical solutions and numerical calculations, we can find that the spiral body can achieve a large OAM temporal pulse. At the same time, based on the zero OAM diffraction diagram, we can obtain an improvement of resolving power beyond Rayleigh's criterion. Finally, applying a large OAM diffraction pattern to realize 12-bitencodes,we can obtain a high-security optical information transfer system.     

基于圆微带天线阵的射频涡旋电磁波的产生

射频涡旋电磁波等相位面呈涡旋状,是一种携有新自由度-轨道角动量的电磁波。在轨道角动量模式理论分析的基础上,提出了在中心频率6 GHz处产生携有轨道角动量的涡旋电磁波的一种圆微带天线阵新结构,设计了以双层圆形微带天线为阵元组成的圆形阵列天线,通过控制馈源的相位差,得到模式量子数为0,1,2, 3, 4的轨道角动量。仿真结果表明:携轨道角动量的电磁波矢量电场图具有涡旋波阵面的特性,合适的阵列半径和馈线排列分布将产生携有良好轨道角动量特性的涡旋电磁波,而不当的阵列半径或馈线排列分布将出现能量的分散或者相互耦合的问题。     

C波段携轨道角动量螺旋波微带阵天线设计

本文以同轴馈电的矩形微带天线作为阵单元,将8个相同的单元天线等间隔分布在一个同心圆面上以组成微带阵天线,并采用等幅但相邻单元间相位差为一常数的方式进行激励。基于三维高频结构电磁模拟软件仿真优化,在中心频率为6GHz处,根据不同的相位延迟得到不同模式的携有轨道角动量的方向图。仿真结论表明,该新颖的微带阵天线能产生携有轨道角动量的螺旋电磁波。     

Rotational motions of optically trapped microscopic particles by a vortex femtosecond laser

The rotational motions of the optically trapped microscopic particles by the vortex femtosecond laser beam are investigated in this paper.Black particles can be trapped and rotated by a vortex femtosecond laser beam very effectively because the vortex beam carries orbital angular momentum due to the helical wave-front structure in assoication with the central phase singularity.Trapped black particles rotate in the vortex beam due to the absorption of the angular momentum transferred from the vortex beam.The rotating directions of the trapped particles can be modulated by reversing the topological charge of the optical vortex in the vortex femtosecond beam.And the rotating speeds of the trapped microscopic particles greatly depend on the topological charges of the vortex tweezer and the used pulse energies.     

Manipulating quantum states with aspheric lenses

We present an experimental demonstration to manipulate the width and position of the down-converted beam waist. Our results can be used to engineer the two-photon orbital angular momentum (OAM) entangled states (such as concentrating OAM entangled states) and generate Hermite–Gaussian (HG) modes entangled states.     

Effect of atmospheric turbulence on entangled orbital angular momentum three-qubit state

The entangled orbital angular momentum(OAM) three photons propagating in Kolmogorov weak turbulence are investigated. Here, the single phase screen model is used to study the entanglement evolution of OAM photons. The results indicate that the entangled OAM three-qubit state with higher OAM modes will be more robust against turbulence.Furthermore, it is found that the entangled OAM three-qubit state has a higher overall transmission for small OAM values.     

Rotation of laser beams with zero of the orbital angular momentum

We show that among the multitude of rotating light beams whose complex amplitude can be represented as a linear superposition of the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes with definite numbers there are light beams with zero orbital angular momentum (OAM) and vice versa, multi-mode LG beams that show no rotation and are lacking the radially symmetric intensity distribution can possess the non-zero OAM. Also, we give examples of the rotating light beams with zero OAM, represented as a superposition of the Bessel and new hypergeometric modes. Using an SLM, we generate a rotating Bessel beam with zero OAM for the first time.     

Fiber coupler for generating orbital angular momentum modes

We propose a fiber coupler consisting of a central ring and four external cores to generate up to ten orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes. Four coherent input lights are launched into the external cores and then coupled into the central ring waveguide to generate OAM modes. By changing the size of the external cores, one can selectively excite a high-order OAM mode. The quality of the generated OAM modes can be enhanced by adjusting the polarization state and the phase of input lights. We show the generation of OAM modes with odd charge numbers of -9 to +9 (i.e., 10 modes totally) with mode purity of >99% using <2?mm long fiber. This fiber coupler design can be extended to enable all-fiber spatial-mode (de)multiplexing.     

Efficient generation and multiplexing of optical orbital angular momentum modes in a ring fiber by using multiple coherent inputs

We propose an approach to efficiently generate and multiplex optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes in a fiber with a ring refractive index profile by using multiple coherent inputs from a Gaussian mode. By controlling the phase relationship of the multiple inputs, one can selectively generate OAM modes of different states l. By controlling both the amplitude and phase of the multiple inputs, multiple OAM modes can be generated simultaneously without additional loss coming from multiplexing. We show, by simulation, the generation of OAM modes (OAM state |l|<3) with mode purity greater than 99%. The power loss of generating and multiplexing seven modes is about 35%. A transmitter for an OAM-based mode-division multiplexing system is proposed based on the discrete Fourier transform between the data carried by the multiple inputs and the data carried by the OAM modes. The experimental implementation of the proposed approach could be achieved by integrating ring fiber, multicore fiber, and photonic integrated circuit technology.     

Transverse mode multiplexing using the helical eigen-beams of orbital angular momentum

The eigen-beams of orbital angular momentum (OAM) have helical wavefront and can be used to construct the channels for free space optical communication, i.e. orbital angular momentum multiplexing (OAMM). It is similar to time-division multiplexing (TDM) and wave-division multiplexing (WDM). We generate four helical beams with different OAM numbers by fork-like grating and modulates them mechanically. The modulated helical beams are then superposed coaxially into one single complex beam. In the receiver, the complex beam is separated into four helical beams with little mutual interference. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of OAMM by using the eigen-beams of orbital angular momentum.     

基于激光光束轨道角动量的8位数据信号产生与检测的实验研究

本文研究了利用激光光束的轨道角动量进行8位数据信息传输的技术. 建立了一套利用光束轨道角动量进行8位数据信息传输的系统, 在信息调制部分采用可选通控制的光源阵列和相位调制屏实现光束轨道角动量态的编码复用, 在信息解调部分采用二元振幅光栅进行轨道角动量态检测,实现了无误码的数据信息传输.     

Influence of atmospheric turbulence on states of light carrying orbital angular momentum

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 crosstalk between OAM modes. We study this crosstalk in OAM for 11 modes, showing that turbulence uniformly degrades the purity of all the modes within this range, irrespective of mode number.     

Entanglement swapping with pure orbital angular momentum Bell-state analysis

We investigate a framework of an orbital angular momentum (OAM) entanglement swapping in a multi-dimensional Hilbert space with the spin angular momentum (SAM)-based orbital angular momentum (OAM) Bell-sate analysis. By the implementations of entanglement swapping with the SAM and OAM Bell-state measurements subsequently, the OAM entanglement states (qudits) are generated and then transferred between photons in multi-dimensional Hilbert space in a point-to-point fashion. In the proposed scheme, two pairs of the SAM-based OAM hybrid entanglement photons are deployed to conduct the successive SAM and OAM Bell-state measurements. It provides an alternative technique to transfer pure OAM Bell-states in qudits, which illustrates a possible experimental approach for devising a full repeater in a complex quantum computation network where entanglement swapping serves as a critical constituent.     

光子高阶轨道角动量制备、调控及传感应用研究进展

光子既是经典信息也是量子信息的理想载体. 单个光子不仅可以携带自旋角动量(与光波的圆偏振相关), 还可以携带轨道角动量(与光波的螺旋相位相关). 而轨道角动量的重要意义在于可利用单个光子的量子态构建一个高维的Hilbert空间, 从而实现高维量子信息的编码. 自Allen等于1992年确认光子轨道角动量的物理存在以来, 轨道角动量在经典光学和量子光学领域展现了诸多诱人的应用前景, 目前已成为国际光学领域的研究热点之一. 本综述将着重介绍高阶轨道角动量光束的制备与调控技术, 特别是高阶轨道角动量的量子纠缠态操控、旋转Doppler 效应测量及其在远程传感和精密测量技术中的应用.     

Generating optical orbital angular momentum in a high-gain free-electron laser at the first harmonic

A scheme to generate intense coherent light that carries orbital angular momentum (OAM) at the fundamental wavelength of an x-ray free-electron laser (FEL) is described. The OAM light is emitted as the dominant mode of the system until saturation provided that the helical microbunching imposed on the electron beam is larger than the shot-noise bunching that leads to self-amplified emission. Operating at the fundamental, this scheme is more efficient than alternate schemes that rely on harmonic emission, and can be applied to x-ray FELs without using external optical mode conversion elements.     

Twisted optical communications using orbital angular momentum

Angular momentum, a fundamental physical quantity, can be divided into spin angular momentum(SAM) and orbital angular momentum(OAM) in electromagnetic waves. Helically-phased or twisted light beams carrying OAM that exploit the spatial structure physical dimension of electromagnetic waves have benefited wide applications ranging from optical manipulation to quantum information processing. Using the two distinct properties of OAM, i.e., inherent orthogonality and unbounded states in principle, one can develop OAM modulation and OAM multiplexing techniques for twisted optical communications. OAM multiplexing is an alternative space-division multiplexing approach employing an orthogonal mode basis related to the spatial phase structure. In this paper, we review the recent progress in twisted optical communications using OAM in free space and fiber. The basic concept of momentum, angular momentum, SAM, OAM and OAM-carrying twisted optical communications,key techniques and devices of OAM generation/(de)multiplexing/detection, high-capacity spectrally-efficient free-space OAM links, fiber-based OAM links, and OAM processing functions are presented. Ultra-high spectral efficiency and petabit-scale freespace data links are achieved benefiting from OAM multiplexing. The key techniques and challenges of twisted optical communications are also discussed. Twisted optical communications using OAM are compatible with other existing physical dimensions such as frequency/wavelength, amplitude, phase, polarization and time, opening a possible way to facilitate continuous increase of the aggregate transmission capacity and spectral efficiency through N-dimensional multiplexing.     

基于环形芯光纤的超低差分模式增益涡旋光纤放大器

提出了一种基于环形芯铒离子部分掺杂光纤的涡旋光纤放大器。针对该掺铒光纤的放大特性,研究了光纤长度、掺铒浓度与抽运功率对信号模式增益特性的影响。研究结果表明,该光纤放大器能够支持22个轨道角动量模式稳定传输,且C波段(1530~1565 nm)所有信号模式增益大于23 dB,信噪比高于27 dB,差分模式增益小于0.015 dB。所提出的基于环形芯光纤的涡旋光纤放大器具有支持轨道角动量模式数量多、差分模式增益低、信噪比高的优势,对于OAM复用长距离传输系统中的在线放大具有重要参考价值。     

Effect of atmospheric turbulence on orbital angular momentum entangled state

The entangled orbital angular momentum (OAM) photons propagating across a weakly turbulent atmosphere are investigated. Here, the paper uses the single-phase screen model based on the Kolmogorov theory of turbulence, and focuses on the influence of the backward scattering on OAM evolution. The results indicate that backward scattering plays an important role in the analysis of OAM entanglement evolution in the turbulent atmosphere. It cannot be negligible especially for higher-order OAM mode. Moreover, when OAM mode is greater than 4, entangled photon pairs composed of higher OAM modes are not more robust in turbulence within the weak scintillation regime. These results will be useful in future investigations of OAM-based optical wave propagation through turbulent atmosphere.     

Separation of spin angular momentum in space-variant linearly polarized beam

We show that the spin angular momentum (SAM) flux in a space-variant linearly polarized beam can be separated in the focal plane. Such a beam carries only orbital angular momentum (OAM) and develops a net SAM flux upon focusing. The radial splitting of the SAM flux density is mediated by the phase vortex (or OAM) and can be controlled by the topological charge of the phase vortex. Optical trapping experiments verify the separation of the SAM flux density. The proposed approach enriches the manipulation of the angular momentum of light fields and inspires more designs of focus engineering, which would benefit optical micromanipulation of microscopic particles.