title: Influence of atmospheric turbulence on states of light carrying orbital angular momentum.
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.
authors.affiliation: The Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, USA. Brandon.Rodenburg@gmail.com
authors.forename: Brandon
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rodenburg
authors.forename: Martin P J
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Lavery
authors.forename: Mehul
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Malik
authors.forename: Malcolm N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: O'Sullivan
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mirhosseini
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Robertson
authors.forename: Miles
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Padgett
authors.forename: Robert W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Boyd