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We demonstrate an on-chip device capable of wavelength-selective generation of vortex beams, which is realized by a spiral phase plate integrated onto a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) tunable filter. This vortex MEMS filter, being capable of functioning simultaneously in both wavelength and orbital-angular-momentum (OAM) domains at the 1550 nm wavelength regime, is considered as a compact, robust, and cost-effective solution for simultaneous OAM- and wavelength-division multiplexed optical communications. The experimental OAM spectra for azimuthal orders 1, 2, and 3 show an OAM state purity >92% across a wavelength range of more than 30 nm.

Abstract:In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate simultaneous wavelength and orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing/demultiplexing of 10 Gbit/s data streams using a new on-chip micro-component -tunable MEMS-based Fabry-Perot filter integrated with a spiral phase plate. In the experiment, two wavelengths, each of them carrying two channels with zero and nonzero OAMs, form four independent information channels. In case of spacing between wavelength channels of 0.8 nm and intensity modulation, power penalties relative to the transmission of one channel do not exceed 1.45, 0.79 and 0.46 dB at the harddecision forward-error correction (HD-FEC) bit-error-rate (BER) limit 3.8 × 10 -3 when multiplexing a Gaussian beam and OAM beams of azimuthal orders 1, 2 and 3 respectively. In case of phase modulation, power penalties do not exceed 1.77, 0.54 and 0.79 dB respectively. At the 0.4 nm wavelength grid, maximum power penalties at the HD-FEC BER threshold relative to the 0.8 nm wavelength spacing read 0.83, 0.84 and 1.15 dB when multiplexing a Gaussian beam and OAM beams of 1st, 2nd and 3rd orders respectively. The novelty and impact of the proposed filter design is in providing practical, integrable, cheap, and reliable transformation of OAM states simultaneously with the selection of a particular wavelength in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). The proposed on-chip device can be useful in future high-capacity optical communications with spatial-and wavelengthdivision multiplexing, especially for short-range communication links and optical interconnects. Lavery, M. Tur, S. Ramachandran, A. F. Molisch, N. Ashrafi, and S. Ashrafi, "Optical communications using orbital angular momentum beams," Adv. Opt. Photonics 7(1), 66-106 (2015). 9. L. Allen, M. W. Beijersbergen, R. J. Spreeuw, and J. P. Woerdman, "Orbital angular momentum of light and the transformation of Laguerre-Gaussian laser modes," Phys. Rev. A 45(11), 8185-8189 (1992). 10. S. Berdagué and P. Facq, "Mode division multiplexing in optical fibers," Appl. Opt. 21(11), 1950-1955 (1982). 11. A. Li, A. Al Amin, X. Chen, and W. Shieh, "Transmission of 107-Gb/s mode and polarization multiplexed CO-OFDM signal over a two-mode fiber," Opt. Express 19(9), 8808-8814 (2011). 12. C. Koebele, M. Salsi, D. Sperti, P. Tran, P. Brindel, H. Mardoyan, S. Bigo, A. Boutin, F. Verluise, P. Sillard, M.Astruc, L. Provost, F. Cerou, and G. Charlet, "Two mode transmission at 2×100 Gb/s, over 40 km-long prototype few-mode fiber, using LCOS-based programmable mode multiplexer and demultiplexer," Opt. Gb/s and 100 Gb/s operation over fiber optic cables," IEEE Std 802.3bm-2015. 42.