title: Demonstration of reconfigurable joint orbital angular momentum mode and space switching.
abstract: We propose and demonstrate space-selective switch functions employing orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes in the space domain for switching network. One is the switching among different OAM modes having different spatial phase structures, called OAM mode switching. The other is the switching among different space locations, called space switching. The switching operation mechanism relies on linear optics. Reconfigurable 4 × 4 OAM mode switching, space switching, and joint OAM mode and space switching fabric using a single spatial light modulator (SLM) are all demonstrated in the experiment. In addition, the presented OAM-incorporated space-selective switch might be further extended to N × N joint OAM mode and space switching with fast response, scalability, cascading ability and compability to facilitate robust switching applications.
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang