Enforcing Energy Balance in Coherently Superimposed Optical Vortices

Jaime Cisternas*, Jaime A. Anguita, Gustavo Funes

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The generation of optical beams with multiple, mutually coherent orbital-angular-momentum (OAM) modes using phase gratings is analyzed from the perspective of energy distribution and radial mode composition. We show that phase gratings designed with equally weighted Laguerre-Gauss (LG) modes will generate beams with uneven energy distribution among OAM components. This unwanted outcome cannot be corrected by adjusting the width of the illuminating beam. We propose a way to design phase gratings that will produce a uniform energy distribution among the constituent OAM states after illumination while minimizing the content of high radial modes. This method is based on a generalized definition for the LG modes that take advantage of the freedom to select their radial scales.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7901712
JournalIEEE Photonics Journal
Volume10
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Manuscript received December 20, 2017; revised February 21, 2018; accepted February 25, 2018. Date of publication February 28, 2018; date of current version March 23, 2018. This work was supported by the Chilean Science and Technology Commission (CONICYT) under Grant FR-1160887. Corresponding author: Jaime Cisternas (e-mail: [email protected]).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2009-2012 IEEE.

Keywords

  • Diffraction gratings
  • coherent communications
  • free-space optical communications
  • optical vortices

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Enforcing Energy Balance in Coherently Superimposed Optical Vortices'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this