Phys.org March 1, 2023
To overcome the barriers to light propagation for free-space optical communication (FSO) a team of researchers in the US (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Michigan) proposed making use of the acoustic properties of a laser filament coupled together with a donut-shaped signal beam. A filament generated by an ultrafast laser was accompanied by an acoustic wave that clears a cylindrical chamber around the filament’s plasma column that can mimic a transmission channel. They presented a method to couple a Laguerre–Gauss beam through the obstacle-free channel. They imaged and measured the transmitted signal carried by the structured beam to demonstrate an efficient method for FSO through cloudy conditions, which requires low energy, resilient to noise, and unaffected by the filament… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Schematic of the experimental setup. Credit: Journal of Applied Physics, Volume 133, Issue 4, 10.1063/5.0129902Â