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Optics Express

Efficient generation of a high-uniformity orbital angular momentum comb via cross-phase modulation

Jun Zeng, Yunxiao Li, Zhao Zhang, Ruyi Li, Jingsong Liu, Yangsheng Yuan, Bernhard J. Hoenders, Fei Wang, Rong Lin, Yangjian Cai, Hui Zhang

Published Oct 13, 2025• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons provides an additional degree of freedom by accessing the spatial structure of light and has benefited applications from classical to quantum photonics. Here we develop a simple scheme to produce an OAM comb-a structured mode comprising multiple, equally spaced OAM components with near-uniform power-using a single cross-phase (CP) modulation. We show that embedding a CP term into a pure OAM mode converts it into a beam with a broadened, tunable OAM spectrum, whose modal distribution is governed by the CP coefficient and the beam waist. Increasing either parameter not only broadens the spectrum but also drives the modal weights toward equalization, leading to a highly uniform OAM comb. Experiments agree well with theory and yield an OAM comb with 93.5% spectral uniformity. This approach is convenient to implement, avoids amplitude-modulation loss, and opens new opportunities for OAM spectrum manipulation in high-security holographic encryption, high-capacity data transfer, and other advanced photonic systems.

DOI
10.1364/oe.576410

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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Nov 19, 2012•12 citations
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) of photons provides an additional degree of freedom by accessing the spatial structure of light and has benefited applications from classical to quantum photonics. Here we develop a simple scheme to produce an OAM comb-a structured mode comprising multiple, equally spaced OAM components with near-uniform power-using a single cross-phase (CP) modulation. We show that embedding a CP term into a pure OAM mode converts it into a beam with a broadened, tunable OAM spectrum, whose modal distribution is governed by the CP coefficient and the beam waist. Increasing either parameter not only broadens the spectrum but also drives the modal weights toward equalization, leading to a highly uniform OAM comb. Experiments agree well with theory and yield an OAM comb with 93.5% spectral uniformity. This approach is convenient to implement, avoids amplitude-modulation loss, and opens new opportunities for OAM spectrum manipulation in high-security holographic encryption, high-capacity data transfer, and other advanced photonic systems.
The creation and detection of light carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) has been studied over the past 30 years. Recently, efforts have been made to efficiently generate multiple OAM components within a single beam, which has led to the generation of the first classical OAM combs. Here we present, to the best of our knowledge, the generation of the first quantum OAM combs utilizing the OAM correlations of a bi-photon state. The OAM correlations are tailored using binary phase gratings in order to achieve numerous OAM comb structures. These states could provide potential benefits when being applied in quantum sensing or high dimensional quantum encryption.
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams with topological charge ℓ are commonly generated and detected by modulating an incoming field with an azimuthal phase profile of the form exp(iℓϕ) by a variety of approaches. This results in unwanted radial modes and reduced power in the desired OAM mode. Here, we show how to enhance the modal purity in the creation and detection of classical OAM beams and in the quantum detection of OAM photons. Classically, we combine holographic and metasurface control to produce high purity OAM modes and show how to detect them with high efficiency, extending the demonstration to the quantum realm with spatial light modulators. We demonstrate ultra-high purity OAM modes in orders as high as ℓ = 100 and a doubling of dimensionality in the quantum OAM spectrum from a spontaneous parametric downconversion source. Our work offers a simple route to increase the channel capacity in classical and quantum communication using OAM modes as a basis.
The bandwidth of any communication system, classical or quantum, is limited by the number of orthogonal states in which the information can be encoded. Quantum key distribution systems available commercially rely on the two-dimensional polarisation state of photons. Quantum computation has also been largely designed on the basis of qubits. However, a photon is endowed with other degrees of freedom, such as orbital angular momentum (OAM). OAM is an attractive basis to be used for quantum information because it is discrete and theoretically infinite-dimensional. This promises a higher information capacity per photon which can lead to more complex quantum computation protocols and more security and robustness for quantum cryptography. Entanglement of OAM naturally arises from spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). However, any practical experiment utilising the innately high-dimensional entanglement of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) state space of photons is subject to the modal capacity of the detection system. Only a finite subset of this space is accessible experimentally. Given such a constraint, we show that the number of measured, entangled OAM modes in photon pairs generated by SPDC can be increased by tuning the phase-matching conditions in the SPDC process. We achieve this by tuning the orientation angle of the nonlinear crystal generating the entangled photons.
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.
Vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes hold the promise of facilitating high-dimensional symbol mappings for information encryption. However, challenges persist in achieving both high-security and high-capacity encryption with OAM modes, mainly due to limitations in encoding degrees of freedom and compatible decoding methods. Herein, we present an encryption scheme that integrates truncated OAM modes with phase encoding. Truncated OAM modes are hybrid modes that emerges from mode dispersion caused by the absence of amplitude modulation during generation. By combining the generation function with phase encoding, we can modulate the mode dispersion, creating a discrete set of truncated modes. This introduces a phase degree of freedom for encoding information onto the mode spectrum, achieving high-security encryption. The exponential expansion of the phase factors enables the construction of higher-order symbol maps, thereby increasing encryption capacity. As a proof-of-concept, we implemented an optical information encrypting link using 4 OAM modes and 32-order phase encoding, resulting in over 3×104 modulation orders. The neural network successfully decoded the encryption information with 100% accuracy. This scheme offers the potential to incorporate additional OAM modes in the generating function and further partition the phase encoding, enabling even higher-dimensional symbol mapping. These advancements open up new possibilities for advancing high-security and high-capacity information encryption based on OAM modes.
The desire to increase the amount of information that can be encoded onto a single photon has driven research into many areas of optics. One such area is optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) [1]. These beams have helical phasefronts and carry an orbital angular momentum of mbar per photon, where the integer m is unbounded, giving a large state space in which to encode information. We recently developed a telescope system comprising two bespoke refractive optical elements to transform OAM states into transverse momentum states [2]. This is achieved by mapping the azimuthal position of the input plane to the lateral position in the output [3]. A mapping of this type transforms a set of concentric rings at the input plane into a set of parallel lines in the output plane. A lens can then separate the resulting transverse momentum states into specified lateral positions, allowing for the efficient measurement of multiple OAM states simultaneously. Separating OAM states in this way presents an opportunity for this larger alphabet to improve the data capacity of a free space link and has potential application in both the classical and quantum regimes. We will present our latest design, increasing the bandwidth of measurable states to over 50 OAM modes. In such a system we study the crosstalk introduced by a thin phase turbulence, showing that turbulence similarly degrades the purity of all the modes within this range.