Pravin Vaity

Design, fabrication and validation of an OAM fiber supporting 36 states

We present an optical fiber supporting 36 information bearing orbital angular momentum (OAM) states spanning 9 OAM orders. We introduce design techniques to maximize the number of OAM modes supported in the fiber; while avoiding LP mode excitation. We fabricate such a fiber with an air core and an annular index profile using the MCVD process. We introduce a new technique for shaping OAM beams in free-space to obtain better coupling efficiency with fiber with annular index profiles. We excite 9 orders of OAM in the fiber, using interferometry to verify the OAM state on exiting the fiber. Using polarization multiplexing and both signs for the topological charge, we confirm support of 36 states, exploiting to our knowledge the highest number of OAM modes ever transmitted in optical fiber.

Perfect vortex beam: Fourier transformation of a Bessel beam

We derive a mathematical description of a perfect vortex beam as the Fourier transformation of a Bessel beam. Building on this development, we experimentally generate Bessel-Gauss beams of different orders and Fourier transform them to form perfect vortex beams. By controlling the radial wave vector of a Bessel-Gauss beam, we can control the ring radius of the generated beam. Our theoretical predictions match with the experimental results and also provide an explanation for previous published works. We find the perfect vortex resembles that of an orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode supported in annular profiled waveguides. Our prefect vortex beam generation method can be used to excite OAM modes in an annular core fiber.

Few-mode fiber with inverse-parabolic graded-index profile for transmission of OAM-carrying modes

A novel type of few-mode fiber, characterized by an inverse-parabolic graded-index profile, is proposed for the robust transmission of cylindrical vector modes as well as modes carrying quantized orbital angular momentum (OAM). Large effective index separations between vector modes (>2.1 × 10(-4)) are numerically calculated and experimentally confirmed in this fiber over the whole C-band, enabling transmission of OAM(+/-1,1) modes for distances up to 1.1 km. Simple design rules are provided for the optimization of the fiber parameters.

Crafting the core asymmetry to lift the degeneracy of optical vortices

We introduce an asymmetry in the core of a high charge optical vortex by using an appropriate computer generated hologram. The splitting of a high charge optical vortex core into unit charge vortices has been found to depend on the extent of the asymmetry. For a second order vortex, the trajectories of the split unit charged vortices and their separation have been recorded as a function of change in the asymmetry of the core. We find a good agreement between the experimentally obtained and numerically calculated results.

Self-healing property of optical ring lattice

We generate experimentally optical ring lattice structures which are the superposition of two coaxial Laguerre-Gaussian modes with common waist position and waist parameter. Although these structures are not diffraction-free, they show self-healing property. This self-reconstruction of the ring lattice can be understood by looking into the transverse energy flow at different z planes. The experimental results are verified by the numerical simulations.

Characterization of OAM fibers using fiber Bragg gratings

The reflectogram of a fiber grating is used to characterize vector modes of an optical fiber supporting orbital angular momentum states. All modes, with a minimal effective index separation around 10(-4), are simultaneously measured. OAM states are reflected by the FBG, along with a charge inversion, at the center wavelength of the Bragg reflection peak of the corresponding fiber vector mode.

Information content of optical vortex fields.

We study, experimentally as well as theoretically, the spatial coherence function and the Wigner distribution function for one-dimensional projections of optical vortices of different orders. The information entropy derived from the spatial coherence functions has been used to quantify the information content of the vortices and compared with those obtained for the Gaussian beam. The experimental results verify the theoretical findings of Agarwal and Banerji [Opt. Lett. 27, 800 (2002)].

Topological charge dependent propagation of optical vortices under quadratic phase transformation.

We make optical vortices of different topological charge and diffract them through a quadratic phase mask using the same spatial light modulator. This phase mask shows the diffraction in which the positive diffracted order has different dynamics than the negative diffracted order. The diffraction pattern and its orientation depend on the charge of the vortex as well as its sign. The experimental results are verified with exact analytical results.

Airy beam optical parametric oscillator

Airy beam, a non-diffracting waveform, has peculiar properties of self-healing and self-acceleration. Due to such unique properties, the Airy beam finds many applications including curved plasma wave-guiding, micro-particle manipulation, optically mediated particle clearing, long distance communication, and nonlinear frequency conversion. However, many of these applications including laser machining of curved structures, generation of curved plasma channels, guiding of electric discharges in a curved path, study of nonlinear propagation dynamics, and nonlinear interaction demand Airy beam with high power, energy, and wavelength tunability. Till date, none of the Airy beam sources have all these features in a single device. Here, we report a new class of coherent sources based on cubic phase modulation of a singly-resonant optical parametric oscillator (OPO), producing high-power, continuous-wave (cw), tunable radiation in 2-D Airy intensity profile existing over a length >2 m. Based on a MgO-doped periodically poled LiNbO3 crystal pumped at 1064 nm, the Airy beam OPO produces output power more than 8 W, and wavelength tunability across 1.51–1.97 μm. This demonstration gives new direction for the development of sources of arbitrary structured beams at any wavelength, power, and energy in all time scales (cw to femtosecond).

Mode division multiplexing using orbital angular momentum modes over 1.4 km ring core fiber

Mode division multiplexing (MDM) systems using orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes can recover the data in D different modes without recourse to full (2D × 2D) multiple input multiple output (MIMO) processing. One of the biggest challenges in OAM-MDM systems is the mode instability following fiber propagation. Previously, MIMO-free OAM-MDM data transmission with two modes over 1.1 km of vortex fiber was demonstrated, where optical polarization demultiplexing was employed in the setup. We demonstrate MDM data transmission using two OAM modes over 1.4 km of a specially designed ring core fiber without using full MIMO processing or optical polarization demultiplexing. We demonstrate reception with electrical polarization demultiplexing, i.e., minimal 2 × 2 MIMO, showing the compatibility of OAM-MDM with current polarization demultiplexing receivers.