Scaling information pathways in optical fibers by topological confinement

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ma, Zelin; Kristensen, Poul; Ramachandran, Siddharth
• 署名单位: Boston University; Furukawa Electric
• 刊物名称: SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0036-10468
• DOI: 10.1126/science.add1874
• 发表日期: 2023-04-21
• 页码: 278-282
• 关键词: orbital angular-momentum; propagation

摘要

Spatial mode-count scalability in optical fibers is of paramount importance for addressing the upcoming information-capacity crunch, reducing energy consumption per bit, and for enabling advanced quantum computing networks, but this scalability is severely limited by perturbative mode mixing. We show an alternative means of light guidance, in which light's orbital angular momentum creates a centrifugal barrier for itself, thereby enabling low-loss transmission of light in a conventionally forbidden regime wherein the mode mixing can be naturally curtailed. This enables kilometer-length-scale transmission of a record similar to 50 low-loss modes with cross-talk as low as -45 decibels/kilometer and mode areas of similar to 800 square micrometers over a 130-nanometer telecommunications spectral window. This distinctive light-guidance regime promises to substantially increase the information content per photon for quantum or classical networks.