Mode division multiplexing (MDM) is mooted as a technology to address future bandwidth issues, and has been successfully demonstrated in free space using spatial modes with orbital angular momentum (OAM). To further increase the data transmission rate, more degrees of freedom are required to form a densely packed mode space. Here we move beyond OAM and demonstrate multiplexing and demultiplexing using both the radial and azimuthal degrees of freedom. We achieve this with a holographic approach that allows over 100 modes to be encoded on a single hologram, across a wide wavelength range, in a wavelength independent manner. Our results offer a new tool that will prove useful in realizing higher bit rates for next generation optical networks.

With the ever-increasing demand for data and radio frequency spectrum becoming congested, Free Space Optics (FSO) may find a niche for situations where fiber is too expensive or too difficult to install. FSO is a cross-disciplinary field that draws from radio and fiber communication, astronomy, and even quantum optics, and it has seen major advances over the last three decades. In this tutorial-style review, we provide a broad overview of many of the important topics required to design, develop, and research the next generation of FSO technology.

Time, polarization, and wavelength multiplexing schemes have been used to satisfy the growing need of transmission capacity. Using space as a new dimension for communication systems has been recently suggested as a versatile technique to address future bandwidth issues. We review the potentials of harnessing the space as an additional degree of freedom for communication applications including free space optics, optical fiber installation, underwater wireless optical links, on-chip interconnects, data center indoor connections, radio frequency and acoustic communications. We focus on the orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes and equally identify the challenges related to each of the applications of spatial modes and the particular OAM modes in communication. We further discuss the perspectives of this emerging technology. Finally, we provide the open research directions and we discuss the practical deployment of OAM communication links for different applications. ). 4 in the future. We also summarize the open problems and the future research directions. A discussion of the practicability and cost of multi-OAM communication is also included. II. OAM POTENTIALS A. Free Space Optical CommunicationFSO is a license free wireless communication configuration that has recently received much interest for a variety of applications. FSO is an attractive solution for last mile connectivity problems, particularly for communication networks, when the installation of fiber optics is costly or not possible [66]. FSO can be also used to establish inter-building secure communication, and can be deployed as a backup to optical fibers. Wireless optical communication can guarantee a line-of-sight (LoS) high bit rate wireless transmission over long distances, up to several kilometers. Furthermore, FSO communication is considered as a promising technique to scale down bandwidth challenges in future 5G networks [67].Multiple wavelength FSO provides better transmission, as demonstrated in [68], [69]. Data can be mapped on advanced modulation formats to achieve high bit rates and high spectral efficiency levels [70]- [72]. Another option is multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) FSO communication in which multiple lasers are positioned to transmit Gaussian beams to multiple receiving apertures [73]. Over the last few years, it has been proven that it is possible to transmit information over spatially structured light beams [21], [74], [75] including OAM beams and plane waves. Our focus is on the OAM modes of light.The first PoC communication experiment incorporating OAMs in free space was carried out in 2004 by Gibson and co-workers [21]. Over a 15-meter long link, 8 -spaced values were chosen along the Gaussian beam as an alphabet for the communication. OAM beams were generated and detected using two light modulators. Since then, much progress has been made and free space transmission capacity of over 1 Tbit/s is, today, possible [76]- [78]. By performing three dimensional multiplexing, Huang and co-workers were able to attain a 100 Tbi...

We experimentally demonstrate an efficient information transmission technique using Laguerre Gaussian (LG) modes. This technique is based on multiplexing and demultiplexing multiple LG modes with different azimuthal and radial components. At the reception, the initially sent modes encoding the information are extracted with high fidelity using a complete decomposition allowing to identify a particular mode from a set of modes within a unique iteration. Importantly, we investigate the effects of the atmospheric turbulence on the proposed communication system. We believe that the proposed technique is promising for high-bit-rate spatial division multiplexing in optical fiber and free space communication systems.

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing has recently received considerable interest in free space optical (FSO) communications. Propagating OAM modes through free space may be subject to atmospheric turbulence (AT) distortions that cause intermodal crosstalk and power disparities between OAM modes. In this paper, we are interested in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) coherent FSO communication systems using the OAM. We propose a selection criterion for the OAM modes to minimize the impact of the AT. To further improve the obtained performance, we propose a space-time (ST) coding scheme at the transmitter. Through numerical simulations of the error probability, we show that the penalty from AT is completely absorbed for the weak AT regime, and considerable coding gains are obtained in the strong AT regime. INDEX TERMS Orbital angular momentum (OAM), atmospheric turbulence, mode selection, space-time coding.