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

Brandon Rodenburg*, Martin P. J. Lavery, Mehul Malik, Malcolm N. O'Sullivan, Mohammad Mirhosseini, David J. Robertson, Miles Padgett, Robert W. Boyd

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

240 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3735-3737
Number of pages3
JournalOptics Letters
Volume37
Issue number17
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2012

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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