{"title":"Coherent detector for the non-separability measurement of vectorial structured light.","authors":"Yize Liang,Shuai Cao,Lixian Liu,Fei Liu,Xukun Yin,Pei Lv,Yiming Zhang,Yunrui Zou,Liang Fang,Shuang Zheng,Zhenyu Wan,Teli Xi,Xiaopeng Shao,Jian Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41377-025-02035-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Atmospheric turbulence distorts the complex wavefront of light in free-space optical communication systems, leading to bit errors and even communication interruptions. Recently, it is found that the non-separability of vectorial structured light remains invariant when transmitting through atmospheric turbulence. This discovery offers a potential solution for turbulence-resilient communications-encoding based on the non-separability of vectorial structured light. To achieve such turbulence-resilient communications, efficient detection of the non-separability of vectorial structured light is essential, which acts as the receivers of such communication systems. So far, traditional non-separability detection schemes usually rely on bulky SLMs or DMDs, facing inherent trade-offs between single-shot capability and system compactness. In addition, the detection of mode-resolved non-separability contributions of vectorial superposition states has not yet been accomplished. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a coherent detector to characterize the non-separability of vectorial structured light based on off-axis digital holography, which overcomes the limitations of traditional approaches by digitally decomposing spatial modes. Our approach may pave the way for turbulence-resilient optical communications based on non-separability coding methods and bring new insights into non-separability measurement.","PeriodicalId":18069,"journal":{"name":"Light-Science & Applications","volume":"4 1","pages":"343"},"PeriodicalIF":23.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Light-Science & Applications","FirstCategoryId":"1089","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-02035-1","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"OPTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Atmospheric turbulence distorts the complex wavefront of light in free-space optical communication systems, leading to bit errors and even communication interruptions. Recently, it is found that the non-separability of vectorial structured light remains invariant when transmitting through atmospheric turbulence. This discovery offers a potential solution for turbulence-resilient communications-encoding based on the non-separability of vectorial structured light. To achieve such turbulence-resilient communications, efficient detection of the non-separability of vectorial structured light is essential, which acts as the receivers of such communication systems. So far, traditional non-separability detection schemes usually rely on bulky SLMs or DMDs, facing inherent trade-offs between single-shot capability and system compactness. In addition, the detection of mode-resolved non-separability contributions of vectorial superposition states has not yet been accomplished. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a coherent detector to characterize the non-separability of vectorial structured light based on off-axis digital holography, which overcomes the limitations of traditional approaches by digitally decomposing spatial modes. Our approach may pave the way for turbulence-resilient optical communications based on non-separability coding methods and bring new insights into non-separability measurement.