Astigmatic speckle-learned OAM shift keying and OAM multiplexing

Orbital angular momentum (OAM)-carrying beams have gained significant attention in recent years due to their unique properties and potential to improve spectral efficiency and data transmission rates in optical communication systems. However, fully exploiting the capabilities of the entire OAM mode spectrum remains challenging. The emergence of AI-driven OAM mode identification has revolutionized the demultiplexing process within optical communication channels. OAM beams with different orders are orthogonal, allowing each beam to serve as a distinct signal carrier. Combining multiple OAM beams can effectively enhance channel capacity. In this paper, we adopt speckle-learned demultiplexing to demultiplex OAM beams via its simulated speckle pattern that is more resilient to alignment and noise. However, the use of only non-intensity degenerate beams limits the utilization of multiplexing resources. This approach aims to fully leverage the full spectrum of OAM beams by introducing astigmatism in far-field speckle patterns using a tilted spherical convex lens. We then conduct a comprehensive analysis of two innovative information encoding techniques: OAM shift keying and OAM multiplexing using simulation results. We successfully demonstrate an optical communication link encoded using both OAM shift keying and OAM multiplexing, followed by accurate decoding via speckle-learned demultiplexing.