Full-Space and Arbitrary Orbital Angular Momentum Multiplexed Beam Manipulation with a Titanium Dioxide Metadevice.

IV The Orbital Angular Momentum of Light

When the orbital angular momentum (OAM) beam is incident on a 90 degree arc slit, a focus will be generated and have a displacement which is nearly linear with the topological charge of the incoming OAM beam. It can detect the OAM beams with a very simple structure.

We present a method to efficiently multiply or divide the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light beams using a sequence of two optical elements. The key element is represented by an optical transformation mapping the azimuthal phase gradient of the input OAM beam onto a circular sector. By combining multiple circular-sector transformations into a single optical element, it is possible to multiply the value of the input OAM state by splitting and mapping the phase onto complementary circular sectors. Conversely, by combining multiple inverse transformations, the division of the initial OAM value is achievable by mapping distinct complementary circular sectors of the input beam into an equal number of circular phase gradients. Optical elements have been fabricated in the form of phase-only diffractive optics with high-resolution electron-beam lithography. Optical tests confirm the capability of the multiplier optics to perform integer multiplication of the input OAM, whereas the designed dividers are demonstrated to correctly split up the input beam into a complementary set of OAM beams. These elements can find applications for the multiplicative generation of higher-order OAM modes, optical information processing based on OAM beam transmission, and optical routing/switching in telecom.

As a pathbreaking approach to generate orbital angular momentum (OAM) beam, uniform circular array (UCA) has been extensively researched and applied. However, the impact of the imperfect UCA (IUCA) converted from a UCA with the position of antenna elements on the purity of the generated OAM beam is rarely considered. In order to verify the effect of position deviation on the OAM beam, this letter deduces the analysis model of the IUCA and the OAM mode purity model. The OAM mode purity refers to the weight of the intensity of the “expected OAM mode.” Numerical simulation results show that the OAM beam generated by IUCA is a superposition of OAM beams with a series of different modes, and this results in a certain OAM beam received being contaminated. Compared with the radius deviation, the azimuth deviation of antenna elements has more obvious influence on the OAM mode purity. Moreover, low-mode OAM beams are more suitable for long-distance transmission. Properly increasing the antenna array radius can improve the purity of high-order OAM modes.

Photons are an ideal candidate for encoding both classical and quantum information. Besides spin angular momentum associated with circular polarization, single photon can also carry other fundamentally new degree of freedom of orbital angular momentum related to the spiral phase structure of light. The key significance of orbital angular momentum lies in its potential in realizing a high-dimensional Hilbert space and in encoding a high-dimensional quantum information. Since Allen et al. [Allen L, Beijersbergen M W, Spreeuw R J C, Woerdman J P 1992 Phys. Rev. A 45 8185] recognized the physical reality of photon orbital angular momentum in 1992, rapidly growing interest has been aroused in orbital angular momentum (OAM) from both classical and quantum points of view. Here we present an overall review on the high-order orbital angular momentum of photon, including its preparation and manipulation based on some specific techniques and also its applications. The spatial light modulator is a commercial device that has been widely employed to generate the OAM beams. We make and identify the optical OAM superposition with very high quantum numbers up to l=360. Recently, the metallic spiral phase mirrors were also developed to produce high-order OAM beams up to l=5050. In addition, the Q-plates made of anisotropic and inhomogeneous liquid crystals were invented to generate high-order OAM beams in a polarization-controllable manner, and the OAM superposition of l=± 50 were achieved. Owing to high rotational symmetry, these high OAM beams have been found to have more and more important applications in the fields of high-sensitivity sensing and high-precision measurements. Two fascinating examples are discussed in detail. The first example is that the research group led by Prof. Zeilinger has prepared and observed the quantum entanglement of high orbital angular momenta up to l=±300 by the technique of polarization-OAM entanglement swapping, and they demonstrated that the angular resolution could be significantly improved by a factor of l. Their result was the first step for entangling and twisting even macroscopic, spatially separated objects in two different directions. The second example is that the research group led by Prof. Padgett has demonstrated an elegant experiment of rotational Doppler effects for visible light with l=±20 OAM superposition. They showed that a spinning object with an optically rough surface might induce a Doppler effect in light reflected from the direction parallel to the rotation axis, and the frequency shift was proportional to both the disk's angular speed and the optical OAM. The potential applications in noncontact measurement of angular speed and in significant improvement of angular resolution for remote sensing will be particularly fascinating.

Generation of orbital angular momentum light based on mechanically induced long-period fiber gratings using 3D printing technique

Traditional multi-mode orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams suffer from low energy efficiency in detection since the divergence angle tends to increase with increasing order of the OAM mode. Thus, OAM beams with equal divergence angle are highly desirable. In this paper, a frequency-diverse multi-mode (FDMM) OAM modulator with approximately equal divergence angle is proposed. The modulator is composed of an OAM modulation metasurface and a spatial filter (SF) with narrow passband. Firstly, the OAM modulation metasurface is designed based on multiple ring-like regions with different radii in the metasurface aperture. Each mode of OAM beam is generated at a corresponding frequency point in one region. Thus, the metasurface aperture can generate different modes of OAM beams at different frequencies (i.e., FDMM OAM beams) simultaneously. Then, the SF with narrow passband is proposed through synthesizing multi-layer frequency selective metasurfaces, aiming to reduce interferences between different modes of OAM beams. Finally, the FDMM OAM modulator is realized by superposing the SF on the OAM modulation metasurface. The FDMM OAM modulator can generate six modes of OAM beams (i.e., ±3 , ±2 and ±1 modes) at 12.5 GHz, 13.0 GHz and 13.6 GHz, respectively. A multi-mode OAM coincidence imaging model based on the FDMM OAM modulator is established. The simulation and experiment results show that the proposed FDMM OAM modulator can be used for target reconstruction and the coincidence imaging performance can be improved assisted by an optimization algorithm.

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams, have attracted great attention in recent years. An OAM beam with a phase singularity is characterized by a helical phase front which provides an additional degree of freedom for wide amount of classical and quantum optical applications. However, despite many attempts to generate and manipulate OAM beams, a robust, reliable and scalable technique to directly address generation, multiplexing and low-loss transmission of the distinct OAM beams is still in great demand. Here, we review the development of all-fiber, ring core photonics lantern mode multiplexer to generate high quality OAM beams up to the second order within a broad spectral range of >550 nm. Our device is a 5-mode mode selective photonic lantern (MSPL) with an annular refractive index profile which is fully compatible with well-established ring core and vortex transmission fibers. Through the excitation of pairs of degenerate linearly polarized (LP) modes of the MSPL, we demonstrate the generation of high quality OAM beams up to the second order. In addition, we demonstrate multiplexing of two OAM modes (OAM+1+ OAM-2) to verify complex beam pattern generation of our all fiber devices. Furthermore, by splicing the end-facet of the photonic lantern to a ring core fiber, we achieve low-loss coupling of OAM modes while maintaining high contrast spiral phase patterns. These results demonstrate the potential of photonic lanterns for generating complex optical beams.

Vector orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams, described by higher-order Poincaré (HOP) sphere, are generalized forms of waves carrying OAM with an inhomogeneous polarization of wavefronts. We construct all-dielectric metasurfaces with adjustable amplitude, polarization, and phase to generate arbitrary vector OAM beams. The metasurface is composed of two pairs of silicon nanopillars arranged alternately. Using the interference effect of the four meta-atoms related to the circular polarization, combined with the propagation and geometric phases, two OAM beams with controlled amplitude, phase, and equal topological charge but opposite signs can be obtained under the incidence of orthogonally circularly polarized lights. For the x linearly polarized light, arbitrary vector OAM beams on the HOP sphere are generated via the superposition of the above OAM beams. Additionally, the evolution process of the beam on the longitude and latitude of the Poincaré sphere is revealed by changing the amplitude and phase of the two OAM beams. This work provides a simple, effective, and flexible method for realizing vector OAM beams while having potential implications for the generation and manipulation of vectorial light fields at the micro-nano scale.

We demonstrate fractional orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams generated using a spiral phase plate (SPP) from a Gaussian input beam. The phase properties of these beams are studied experimentally using Mach-Zender interferometer technique. The generated fractional OAM beams are explained by decomposing them into sum of Laguerre Gaussian (LG) modes. The analysis presented is useful in determining the prominent charge value, different higher order mode content in OAM beam and also helps to estimate its purity. This modal analysis is expected to be useful in OAM beams based communication system for spatial mode filtering at the receiving end of the link and also to obtain purity of OAM beams.

Traditional wireless links employing OAM (orbital angular momentum) beams make use of their spatial orthogonality in order to increase their spectral efficiency, by carrying a separate data stream on each beam. This requires that the OAM antenna axes are aligned with the line of sight of the link, and are capable of radiating and receiving high-purity orthogonal OAM beams. Due to the deep spatial nulls of these beams (except the zero-order OAM beam) on their axes, the received signal strengths are much lower than from conventional beams of comparable-sized antennas, limiting the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the reach of such links, or requiring very large receive antennas in terms of wavelengths.Here we describe an alternative technique for recovering received OAM beams based on pseudo-Doppler techniques [1]-[3] which avoid the above limitations of traditional OAM links. In this work, the receiving antennas are not aligned with the OAM beam axes, so the received signals are stronger, the receivers and their antennas are fewer and simpler, and the reach is longer than in traditional wireless OAM links. We demonstrate for the first time, by simulations and experiments performed on an outdoor 100m link at 28 GHz, that it is possible to recover 4 independent data streams carried in a common 20MHz channel on 4 co-aperture OAM beams using the technique developed in [1], with only 2 receiver chains. The transmitting OAM antenna radiates all OAM beams with the same cone angles and the 2 receiving antennas are set on their peaks off-axis in the far field, 20cm apart and tangent to the OAM cones, unlike in traditional OAM wireless links [4]. Salient aspects of the pseudo-Doppler OAM recovery algorithm, its simulation in an end-to-end link, and key design features of the demonstration hardware and signal-processing are presented.

This paper proposes a novel metasurface that can simultaneously generate orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams with pre-designed different reflection directions, multi-beam and multi-mode under x-(y-) polarized terahertz wave incidence. The configuration of unit cell is made up of a hollow cross of Jesus structure as top layer, a PTFE substrate layer and a gold metal bottom plate. Theory of phase gradient distribution is derived and used to design multifunctional OAM metasurface. The proposed metasurface generates two OAM beams with OAM mode l = 1 and four OAM beams with l = -1 at frequency of 1 THz, respectively. Similarly, at frequency of 1.3 THz, the designed metasurface produces two OAM beams with l = -2 and an OAM beam with l = 2 for x-(y-) polarized wave incidence, respectively. Since each OAM mode can be used as an independent digital information coding channel, the designed multifunctional OAM metasurface has a wide application prospect in future terahertz communication.

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons, as a new fundamental degree of freedom, has excited a great diversity of interest, because of a variety of emerging applications. Arbitrarily tunable OAM has gained much attention, but its creation remains still a tremendous challenge. We demonstrate the realization of well-controlled arbitrarily tunable OAM in both theory and experiment. We present the concept of general OAM, which extends the OAM carried by the scalar vortex field to the OAM carried by the azimuthally varying polarized vector field. The arbitrarily tunable OAM we presented has the same characteristics as the well-defined integer OAM: intrinsic OAM, uniform local OAM and intensity ring, and propagation stability. The arbitrarily tunable OAM has unique natures: it is allowed to be flexibly tailored and the radius of the focusing ring can have various choices for a desired OAM, which are of great significance to the benefit of surprising applications of the arbitrary OAM.

In this study, a high-performance orbital angular momentum (OAM) beam is designed, analyzed and experimented using a 1-bit programmable metasurface. OAM as a novel technology is investigated systematically in this paper. Moreover, this study is motivated by the application requirements of real-time controllable communication. The proposed programmable metasurface comprises 1-bit phase modulation units with only two phase states, which is evolved from an electromagnetic surface composed of 360° continuous phase units based on the principle of 1-bit phase quantization. First, the necessity and feasibility of developing the OAM beam based on 1-bit programmable metasurface are studied. Then, qualitative analysis of OAM beams is conducted on different OAM modes and phase modulation elements. Next, the quantitative indexes of OAM beams such as the peak gain in far-field, the divergence angle of main lobe, and circumferential symmetry in azimuth planes are systematically analyzed through a survey of key factors. It is noteworthy that this analysis provides a powerful research basis to achieve an excellent OAM beam with the adjustable function. Thereafter, an active reflective programmable metasurface with $48\times48$ elements is fabricated to verify the feasibility of developing an OAM beam using a 1-bit element. The experimental and simulation results are in good agreement. Furthermore, a high gain OAM beam with a narrow divergence angle is realized by using the large-scale 1-bit programmable metasurface. Notably, a high-gain beam and an OAM beam can be both generated and can converted into each other, which lays the foundation to achieve the OAM beam with the function of real time dynamic control in future.

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons has both classical and quantum applications due to its feature of optical vortex and infinite dimension. OAM discrimination is one of the basic problems, which has been paid much attention recently. Here we present an interferometer method in which a Sagnac interferometer with a Dove prism is placed on each arm to separate the different OAM of photons into different output ports, namely, OAM sorters. We demonstrate experimentally the feasibility of OAM sorter by dividing different OAM states into different output ports. Using the cascade interferometers, we also sort the superposition state successfully. Experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. Compared with other methods, this method is more stable and can be used to separate superposition states into single photon levels. Furthermore, this method can also be used to couple OAM modes with spatial modes, a very important method for manipulating OAM states. It is a useful method and has potential applications in high-capacity optical communication, quantum entanglement, quantum cryptography, quantum computation and quantum information.