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Synthetic helical dichroism for six-dimensional optical orbital angular momentum multiplexing

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 901–907 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optical multiplexing1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 by creating orthogonal data channels has offered an unparalleled approach for information encoding with substantially improved density and security. Despite the fact that the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light involves physical orthogonal division, the lack of explicit OAM sensitivity at the nanoscale prevents this feature from realizing nanophotonic information encoding. Here we demonstrate the viability of nanoscale information multiplexing utilizing the OAM of light. This is achieved by discovering OAM-dependent polarization ellipses in non-paraxial focusing conditions and hence synthetic helical dichroism resulting from the distinct absorption of achiral nanoparticles to the different order of OAM beams. Leveraging this mechanism, the application of subwavelength-scale focused OAM beams to self-assemble plasmonic nanoaggregates further enables six-dimensional optical information multiplexing, in conjunction with wavelength, polarization and three spatial dimensions. Our results suggest the possibility of multiplexing OAM division as an unbounded degree of freedom for nanophotonic information encoding, security imprinting and beyond.

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Fig. 1: OAM-dependent polarization ellipse-mediated synthetic HD for six-dimensional optical encoding.
Fig. 2: Amplified synthetic HD in disordered plasmonic nanoaggregates.
Fig. 3: Optical encoding through the photothermal deformation mechanism.
Fig. 4: Six-dimensional optical encryption and encoding.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots in this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

X.L. would like to thank the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFB1107200). X.L. also acknowledges financial support from the National Nature and Science Foundation of China (grant no. 61522504) and the Guangdong Provincial Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project (grant no. 2016ZT06D081). Y.X. acknowledges financial support from the National Nature and Science Foundation of China (grant no. 91750110), the Guangdong Provincial Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project (2019ZT08X340), the Research and Development Plan in Key Areas of Guangdong Province (2018B010114002) and the Pearl River Nova Program of Guangzhou (no. 201806010040). C.-W.Q. acknowledges support from the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore, under its Competitive Research Programme (CRP award NRF CRP22-2019-0006). C.-W.Q. is also supported by grant no. R-261-518-004-720 from Advanced Research and Technology Innovation Centre (ARTIC). M.G. acknowledges support from the Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone (ZJ2019-ZD-005).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Yi Xu

    Present address: Advanced Institute of Photonics Technology, School of Information Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

  2. These authors contributed equally: Xu Ouyang, Yi Xu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber Sensing and Communications, Institute of Photonics Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

    Xu Ouyang, Ziwei Feng, Yaoyu Cao, Bai-Ou Guan & Xiangping Li

  2. Department of Electronic Engineering, College of Information Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

    Xu Ouyang, Yi Xu & Mincong Xian

  3. School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai, China

    Linwei Zhu

  4. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nanophotonic Functional Materials and Devices, School of Information and Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

    Sheng Lan

  5. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Cheng-Wei Qiu

  6. Institute of Photonic Chips, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

    Min Gu

  7. Centre for Artificial-Intelligence Nanophotonics, School of Optical-Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China

    Min Gu

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Contributions

Y. X., X.L. and M.G. conceived the idea. Y.X. and X.O. performed the theoretical study. X.O. conducted the experiments with the help of M.X., Z.F, L.Z, Y.C. and X.L. Y.X. and X.L. analysed the data. Y.X. and X.L. wrote the manuscript with input from all the authors. X.L. and M.G. supervised this project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Min Gu or Xiangping Li.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Photonics thanks Ebrahim Karimi and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–4 and Figs. 1–15.

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Ouyang, X., Xu, Y., Xian, M. et al. Synthetic helical dichroism for six-dimensional optical orbital angular momentum multiplexing. Nat. Photon. 15, 901–907 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00880-1

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