Cylindrical vector beams with polarization singularities, transmission stability and turbulence resilient, are orthogonally structured light beams providing new degrees of freedom for multiplexing optical communications. The demultiplexing of the CVBs with high efficiency and low crosstalk is of vital importance for the practical applications. Here, we propose a lens-less CVB sorting approach with a set of dielectric metasurface devices. The metasurface is composed of elliptical silicon nanopillars, which are capable of vector field steering. By performing mode transformations on both left-handed and right-handed polarization components of the CVBs, cylindrical vector beams can be demultiplexed with high efficiency and reduced crosstalk. Furthermore, by adjusting the phase response of the vectorial diffractive element into a set of Pancharatnam–Berry (PB) phase planes, we experimentally demonstrate 11 CVBs sorting with a set of P–B phase liquid crystal devices. The proposed device may benefit the CVB-based mode multiplexing communications in future.

Space-division multiplexing based on few-mode multi-core fiber (FM-MCF) technology is expected to break the Shannon limit of a single-mode fiber. However, an FM-MCF is compact, and it is difficult to couple the beam to each fiber core. 3D waveguide devices have the advantages of low insertion loss and low cross talk in separating various spatial paths of multi-core fibers. Designing a 3D waveguide device for an FM-MCF requires considering not only higher-order modes transmission, but also waveguide bending. We propose and demonstrate a 3D waveguide device fabricated by femtosecond laser direct writing for various spatial path separations in an FM-MCF. The 3D waveguide device couples the LP01 and LP11a modes to the FM-MCF with an insertion loss below 3 dB and cross talk between waveguides below − 36    dB . To test the performance of the 3D waveguide device, we demonstrate four-channel multiplexing communication with two LP modes and two cores in a 1-km few-mode seven-core fiber. The bit error rate curves show that the different degrees of bending of the waveguides result in a difference of approximately 1 dB in the power penalty. Femtosecond laser direct writing fabrication enables 3D waveguide devices to support high-order LP modes transmission and further improves FM-MCF communication.