Orbital angular momentum vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Li, H., Phillips, D. B., Wang, X., Ho, Y.-L. D., Chen, L., Zhou, X., Zhu, J., Yu, S. and Cai, X. (2015) Orbital angular momentum vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. Optica, 2(6), pp. 547-552. (doi: 10.1364/OPTICA.2.000547)

Abstract

Harnessing the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light is an appealing approach to developing photonic technologies for future applications in optical communications and high-dimensional quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. An outstanding challenge to the widespread uptake of the OAM resource is its efficient generation. In this work we design a new device that can directly emit an OAM-carrying light beam from a low-cost semiconductor laser. By fabricating micro-scale spiral phase plates within the aperture of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), the linearly polarized Gaussian beam emitted by the VCSEL is converted into a beam carrying specific OAM modes and their superposition states, with high efficiency and high beam quality. This new approach to OAM generation may be particularly useful in the field of OAM-based optical and quantum communications, especially for short-reach data interconnects and QKD. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Phillips, Dr David and Li, Mr Huanlu
• Authors: Li, H., Phillips, D. B., Wang, X., Ho, Y.-L. D., Chen, L., Zhou, X., Zhu, J., Yu, S., and Cai, X.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: Optica
• ISSN: 2334-2536
• ISSN (Online): 2334-2536
• Published Online: 04 June 2015
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 Optical Society of America
• First Published: First published in Optica 2(6):547-552
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher