title: Reconfigurable switching of orbital-angular-momentum-based free-space data channels.
abstract: Light beams can carry orbital angular momentum (OAM) such that a helical phase front twists along the direction of propagation. OAM beams have been demonstrated in a wide variety of applications and have been found to offer a new orthogonal degree of freedom for multiplexing independent data streams for high-capacity point-to-point optical communications. However, to enable their efficient use in reconfigurable networks, approaches must be developed to manipulate OAM beams. We demonstrate OAM-based reconfigurable optical switching functions among multiple OAM beams. Selective data switching among three 100 Gb/s quadrature phase-shift keying OAM channels was achieved with a 2.1 dB optical signal-to-noise ratio penalty. The scheme of selective OAM-beam manipulation can be potentially cascaded to realize an arbitrary n×n switching function.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yue
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Nisar
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Yongxiong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Guodong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Dvora
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rogawski
authors.forename: Moshe
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tur
authors.forename: Alan E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Willner