Shaping fractional orbital angular momentum beams through highly scattering media

Area of Science:

• Optics
• Photonics
• Wave physics

Background:

• Fractional orbital angular momentum (FOAM) beams with radially notched intensity distributions are crucial for optical manipulation and communication.
• Direct transmission of FOAM beams through highly scattering media (e.g., biological tissues, fog) is hindered by multiple scattering, limiting their applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and demonstrate a novel method for establishing FOAM beams through highly scattering media.
• To overcome the limitations imposed by scattering on FOAM beam propagation and application.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing the Fourier field of the desired FOAM beam as a filtered mask.
• Applying the transmission matrix-based point spread function method to reconstruct FOAM beams.
• Engineering notch width and topological charge for beam control.

Main Results:

• Successfully constructed conventional and perfect FOAM beams through highly scattering media.
• Demonstrated continuous engineering of notch width and topological charge.
• Observed that conventional FOAM beam size scales with topological charge, while perfect FOAM beam size remains independent.

Conclusions:

• The proposed method effectively overcomes high scattering challenges for FOAM beam transmission.
• This approach is expected to significantly advance the application of FOAM beams in scattering environments.
• The ability to generate tunable FOAM beams opens new possibilities for optical technologies.