Electrically-activated spin-controlled orbital angular momentum multiplexer

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid device combining a static orbital angular momentum multiplexer with a dynamic, electrically-controlled spin-dependent optical element, enabling on-demand angular momentum multiplexing for advanced optical communication.

Contribution

It presents a novel integrated system that combines static diffractive optics with a dynamic liquid crystal component for spin-controlled orbital angular momentum multiplexing.

Findings

Successful fabrication of a conformal mapping multiplexer using electron beam lithography.

Effective integration of a liquid crystal vortex generator for dynamic control.

Potential applications in high-dimensional optical mode switching and routing.

Abstract

We present and test the integration of a static orbital angular momentum mode multiplexer with a dynamical geometric-phase optical element enabling on-demand spin-controlled angular momentum multiplexing. A diffractive optics multiplexer fabricated with 3D high-resolution electron beam lithography performs a conformal mapping for the conversion from linear to azimuthal phase gradients. The latter is functionalized by a dynamic spin-orbit add-on that consists of a self-engineered electrically-activated liquid crystal optical vortex generator having large clear-aperture and high-resolution. By combining several functionalities based on the optical angular momentum of light in a compact manner, the proposed hybrid device could find applications in next-generation high-dimensional mode switchers and routers based on orbital angular momentum.