Driven primarily by cloud service and data-center applications, short-reach optical communication has become a key market segment and growing research area in recent years. Short-reach systems are characterized by direct detection-based receiver configurations and other low-cost and small form factor components that induce transmission impairments unforeseen in their coherent counterparts. Innovative signaling and digital signal processing (DSP) play a pivotal role in enabling these components to realize their ultimate potentials and meet data rate requirements in cost-effective manners. This paper presents an overview of recent DSP developments for short-reach communications systems and discusses future trends.

Digital Signal Processing for Short-Reach Optical Communications: A Review of Current Technologies and Future Trends

Structured light, especially beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM), has gained much interest due to its unique amplitude and phase structures. In terms of communication systems, multiple orthogonal OAM beams can be potentially utilized for increasing link capacity in different scenarios. This review describes challenges, advances, and perspectives on different aspects of the OAM-based optical communications, including (a) OAM generation/detection and (de)multiplexing, (b) classical free-space optical communication links, (c) fiber-based communication links, (d) quantum communication links, (e) OAM-based communications in different frequency ranges, (f) OAM-based communications using integrated devices, and (g) novel structured beams for communications.

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Orbital angular momentum of light for communications

The identification of orbital angular momentum (OAM) as a fundamental property of a beam of light nearly twenty-five years ago has led to an extensive body of research around this topic. The possibility that single photons can carry OAM has made this degree of freedom an ideal candidate for the investigation of complex quantum phenomena and their applications. Research in this direction has ranged from experiments on complex forms of quantum entanglement to the interaction between light and quantum states of matter. Furthermore, the use of OAM in quantum information has generated a lot of excitement, as it allows for encoding large amounts of information on a single photon. Here we explain the intuition that led to the first quantum experiment with OAM fifteen years ago. We continue by reviewing some key experiments investigating fundamental questions on photonic OAM and the first steps into applying these properties in novel quantum protocols. In the end, we identify several interesting open questions that could form the subject of future investigations with OAM.

Orbital angular momentum of photons and the entanglement of Laguerre-Gaussian modes

The optical fibre is an essential tool for our communication infrastructure since it is the main transmission channel for optical communications. The latest major advance in optical fibre technology is spatial division multiplexing (SDM), where new fibre designs and components establish multiple co-existing data channels based on light propagation over distinct transverse optical modes. Simultaneously, there have been many recent developments in the field of quantum information processing (QIP), with novel protocols and devices in areas such as computing, communication and metrology. Here, we review recent works implementing QIP protocols with SDM optical fibres, and discuss new possibilities for manipulating quantum systems based on this technology.

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Quantum information processing with space-division multiplexing optical fibres

The optical fibre is an essential tool for our communication infrastructure since it is the main transmission channel for optical communications. The latest major advance in optical fibre technology is space-division multiplexing, where new fibre designs and components establish multiple co-existing data channels based on light propagation over distinct transverse optical modes. Simultaneously, there have been many recent developments in the field of quantum information processing, with novel protocols and devices in areas such as computing and communication. Here, we review recent results in quantum information based on space-division multiplexing optical fibres, and discuss new possibilities based on this technology. Quantum information processing holds promise to achieve more secure data transfer in the current network of telecommunication fibres. Here, the authors review recent works implementing spatial division multiplexing in optical fibres and discuss their potential for quantum communication in classical networks.

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We demonstrate for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, an all-fiber orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexer that multiplexes both OAM modes of −l and +l up to the second order by using a mode-selective photonic lantern and a mode polarization controller. The experimentally obtained mode profiles are close to the theoretical results, and the mode purities are higher than 89% for all the OAM modes at 1550 nm. The losses for all mode generations are less than 3.8 dB in the C-band.

All-fiber orbital angular momentum mode multiplexer based on a mode-selective photonic lantern and a mode polarization controller.

In this Letter, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate a new method to generate tunable orbital angular momentum (OAM) by continuously changing the angle of linear polarization of the input light. We use the Fourier series of left- and right-hand projections to prove that the average OAM smoothly varied from l=−1 to l=1 with the angle of LP of input light changing from 0 to π, which is fulfilled by an electrical polarization controller.

Continuously tunable orbital angular momentum generation controlled by input linear polarization

We propose a linear mapping relationship between the polarization of the fundamental mode and the cylindrical vector (CV) modes on the first-order Poincare sphere (FOPS) in fiber. The new method is based on the four-dimensional complex Jones matrices in terms of the linearly polarized mode bases. With our theoretical model, an all-fiber approach to generate arbitrary CV beams on the FOPS is proposed theoretically and verified experimentally. In the experiment, through the combination of a mode converter and a two-segment cascaded few-mode fiber with fixed stresses, it is possible to generate all CV modes on the FOPS by only adjusting the polarization of the fundamental mode. The Stokes parameters of the output light are measured to verify our scheme, which shows good agreement with the theoretical prediction. The method may provide a convenient way to generate CV beams and evolve the polarization states in any path on the FOPS, which is expected to have potential applications in encoding information and quantum computation.

All-fiber generation of arbitrary cylindrical vector beams on the first-order Poincaré sphere

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams, a new fundamental degree of freedom, have excited a great diversity of interest due to a variety of emerging applications. The scalability of OAM has always been a topic of discussion because it plays an important role in many applications, such as expanding to large capacity and adjusting the trapped particle rotation speed. Thus, the generation of arbitrary tunable OAM mode has been paid increasing attention. In this paper, the basic concepts of classical OAM modes are introduced firstly. Then, the tunable OAM modes are categorized into three types according to the orbital angular momentums and polarization states of mode carrying. In order to understand the OAM evolution of a mode intuitively, three kinds of Poincare spheres (PSs) are introduced to represent the three kinds of tunable OAM modes. Numerous methods generating tunable OAM modes can be roughly divided into two types: spatial and fiber-based generation methods. The principles of fiber-based generation methods are interpreted by introducing two mode bases (linearly-polarized modes and vector modes) of the fiber. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of each generation method are pointed out and the key challenges for tunable OAM modes are discussed.

A Review of Tunable Orbital Angular Momentum Modes in Fiber: Principle and Generation

We analyze the mode evolution in mode-selective photonic lanterns with respect to taper lengths, affected by possible mode phase differences varying along the taper. As a result, we design a three-mode orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode-selective photonic lantern by optimizing the taper length with mode crosstalk below −24 dB, which employs only one single mode fiber port to selectively generate one OAM mode.

Lipeng Feng

Papers

All-fiber orbital angular momentum mode multiplexer based on a mode-selective photonic lantern and a mode polarization controller.

Continuously tunable orbital angular momentum generation controlled by input linear polarization

All-fiber generation of arbitrary cylindrical vector beams on the first-order Poincaré sphere

A Review of Tunable Orbital Angular Momentum Modes in Fiber: Principle and Generation

Mode-Selective Photonic Lanterns for Orbital Angular Momentum Mode Division Multiplexing