Transmission of vector vortex beams in dispersive media

Abstract

Scattering phenomena affect light propagation through any kind of medium from free space to biological tissues. Finding appropriate strategies to increase the robustness to scattering is the common requirement in developing both communication protocols and imaging systems. Recently, structured light has attracted attention due to its seeming scattering resistance in terms of transmissivity and spatial behavior. Moreover, correlation between optical polarization and orbital angular momentum (OAM), which characterizes the so-called vector vortex beams (VVBs) states, seems to allow for the preservation of the polarization pattern. We extend the analysis by investigating both the spatial features and the polarization structure of vectorial optical vortexes propagating in scattering media with different concentrations. Among the observed features, we find a sudden swift decrease in contrast ratio for Gaussian, OAM, and VVB modes for concentrations of the adopted scattering media exceeding 0.09%. Our analysis provides a more general and complete study on the propagation of structured light in dispersive and scattering media.

OAM light propagation through tissue

“…New methods for creating OAM beams have been explored and their propagation through diffuse media has been studied. Recent works have focused on the beam structure for different orders of OAM after passing through diffuse media 7 , 8 , 13 . As a beam passes through diffuse media, the light is scattered the polarization becomes random and the beam's power decreases 14 .…”

“…New methods for creating OAM beams have been explored and their propagation through diffuse media has been studied. Recent works have focused on the beam structure for different orders of OAM after passing through diffuse media 7,8,13 . As a beam passes through diffuse media, the light is scattered the polarization becomes random and the beam's power decreases 14 .Studies of OAM propagation have treated transmission through multi scattering media for communication purposes, including transmission through atmosphere, desert environment and underwater 6,12,[15][16][17][18] .…”

“…In contrast, studies examining the effect of increasing beam order on beam penetration through biological tissue have shown that increasing order improves beam penetration. In recent years, the connection between attenuation and OAM has been investigated in the context of biology and medicine 7,8,13,[19][20][21] . Studies that have used numerical methods that model this problem have shown that increasing the topological charge does improve permeability and increases the contrast of the outgoing beam [22][23][24] .…”

Engineering photonic angular momentum with structured light: a review

“…10(a), photons have various physical degrees of freedom, including time, amplitude, polarization, spatial structure, and frequency/wavelength, which are widely adopted in optical communications as information carriers. 117,118 The multiplexing techniques of each dimension lead to wavelengthdivision multiplexing, time-division multiplexing, quadrature amplitude modulation, polarization-division multiplexing, modedivision multiplexing, etc. 119 The AM multiplexing modulation considerably enhances the capacity of optical communications because of the added degree of freedom given by the photonic AM.…”

Detecting objects behind scattering media using vortex beams and deep learning

“…The LG modes are the easiest type of vortex beams to generate in a laboratory setting, and excellent reviews exist on the theoretical explanation of OAM, generation of LG beams, and applications using LG beams [36,37]. An extensive study of the vortex beams has found ample applications in the field of communications and optical imaging, among others [35,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. Compared to the traditional Gaussian beam, the use of vortex beams in an imaging system shows significant improvement in the image quality.…”