Orbital Angular Momentum Based Communication Systems Under Atmospheric Turbulence

Abstract

Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) may be a candidate for future communication systems due to its advantages in terms of high data rates and effective frequency utilization. OAM can provide a solution where a beam is transformed into multiple beams within itself and becomes independent streams of data (pertaining to the principle of orthogonality) to be transferred when properly utilized. However, the free space contains atmospheric turbulence which interferes with the beam propagation of OAM and as a result the photons in the light beam are affected as well as the independence of each OAM mode. Therefore, the data stream suffers crosstalk. In this study, weak and strong atmospheric turbulences and how they affect a variety of OAM modes as they propagate through free space are investigated, and important OAM implementation issues are discussed.