Adaptive free-space optical communications through turbulence using self-healing Bessel beams.

We present a scheme to realize obstruction- and turbulence-tolerant free-space orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing link by using self-healing Bessel beams accompanied by adaptive compensation techniques. Compensation of multiple 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) data carrying Bessel beams through emulated atmospheric turbulence and obstructions is demonstrated. The obtained experimental results indicate that the compensation scheme can effectively reduce the inter-channel crosstalk, improve the bit-error rate (BER) performance, and recuperate the nondiffracting property of Bessel beams. The proposed scheme might be used in future high-capacity OAM links which are affected by atmospheric turbulence and obstructions.