Offset tolerance of an orbital angular momentum optical communication system with angular deflection

Abstract

This work studied the offset tolerance (OT) with a particular focus on the angular deflection of an orbital angular momentum (OAM) system in free space. We derived an analytical expression of the OT for an angular-deflected Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam via Fourier series (FS) expansion and determined the upper bound of the OT for OAM-multiplexed systems. Next, we analyzed the effects of the beam waist, transmitted distance and OAM state number on the OT numerically. The calculation results indicate that the OT of the deflected beam is inversely proportional to the square root of the OAM number and approximately reciprocal to the propagation distance. Finally, we calculated the bit-error rate (BER) and aggregated capacity of multiplexed systems with different sets of channels. The results confirmed that the estimated upper bound is reasonable, especially for larger mode spacings. This work can provide guidance for the design and optimization of angular-deflected OAM-multiplexed communication systems.