‘Twisted’ Light Could Illuminate New Path for Wireless Communications

Photonics & Imaging Technology INSIDER

Concept drawing of a form of wireless, high-capacity data transmission using ‘twisted’ light instead of fiber optics.

Scientists have taken an important step towards using ‘twisted’ light as a form of wireless, high-capacity data transmission which could make fiber optics obsolete.

Scientists can ‘twist’ photons – individual particles of light – by passing them through a special type of hologram, similar to that on a credit card, giving the photons a twist known as optical angular momentum. While conventional digital communications use photons as ones and zeroes to carry information, the number of intertwined twists in the photons allows them to carry additional data – something akin to adding letters alongside the ones and zeroes. The ability of twisted photons to carry additional information means that optical angular momentum (OAM) has the potential to create much higher-bandwidth communications technology.

While optical angular momentum techniques have already been used to transmit data across cables, transmitting twisted light across open spaces has been significantly more challenging for scientists to date. Even simple changes in atmospheric pressures across open spaces can scatter light beams and cause the spin information to be lost. The researchers examined the effects on both the phase and intensity of OAM carrying light over a real link in an urban environment to assess the viability of these modes of quantum information transfer.

Their free space link, in Erlangen, Germany, was 1.6km in length and passed over fields and streets and close to high-rise buildings to accurately simulate an urban environment and atmospheric turbulence that can disrupt information transfer in space – a thorough approach that will be instrumental in moving OAM research forward.

Conducting this field tests in a real urban environment, has revealed exciting new challenges that must be overcome before systems can be made commercially available. Previous studies had indicated the potential feasibility of OAM communication systems, but had not fully characterized the effects of turbulent air on the phase of the structured light propagating over links of this length.

The turbulent atmosphere used in this experiment highlighted the fragility of shaped phase fronts, particularly for those that would be integral to high-bandwidth data transfers. This study indicated the challenges future adaptive optical systems will be required to resolve if free space optics are to eventually replace fiber optics as a functional mode of communication in urban environments and remote sensing systems.

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