Wei Shibiao, Earl Stuart K, Lin Jiao, Kou Shan Shan, Yuan Xiao-Cong
1Nanophotonics Research Center, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Micro-Scale Optical Information Technology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060 China.
2Department of Chemistry and Physics, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS), La Trobe University, Victoria, 3086 Australia.
Light Sci Appl. 2020 Jan 28;9:10. doi: 10.1038/s41377-020-0243-x. eCollection 2020.
The orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light has been shown to be useful in diverse fields ranging from astronomy and optical trapping to optical communications and data storage. However, one of the primary impediments preventing such applications from widespread adoption is the lack of a straightforward and dynamic method to sort incident OAM states without altering the states. Here, we report a technique that can dynamically filter individual OAM states and preserve the incident OAM states for subsequent processing. Although the working principle of this technique is based on resonance, the device operation is not limited to a particular wavelength. OAM states with different wavelengths can resonate in the resonator without any additional modulation other than changing the length of the cavity. Consequently, we are able to demonstrate a reconfigurable OAM sorter that is constructed by cascading such optical resonators. This approach does not require specially designed components and is readily amenable to integration into potential applications.
光的轨道角动量（OAM）已被证明在从天文、光镊到光通信和数据存储等众多领域中都很有用。然而，阻碍此类应用广泛采用的主要障碍之一是缺乏一种直接且动态的方法来对入射的OAM态进行分选而不改变其状态。在此，我们报道了一种能够动态过滤单个OAM态并保留入射OAM态以供后续处理的技术。尽管该技术的工作原理基于共振，但其器件操作并不局限于特定波长。不同波长的OAM态可以在谐振器中发生共振，除了改变腔的长度外无需任何额外调制。因此，我们能够展示一种通过级联此类光学谐振器构建的可重构OAM分选器。这种方法不需要专门设计的组件，并且很容易集成到潜在应用中。
