Abstract
In free-space optical (FSO) communications, there are scenarios (e.g., from a ground station to a drone/airplane) in which: (i) the transmitter (Tx) can have a relatively large aperture whereas the receiver (Rx) aperture should preferably be much smaller, and (ii) the distance between the Tx and Rx can vary such that beam divergence will cause a variation in the recovered signal power. In such cases, transmission using a fundamental Gaussian beam can be significantly degraded due to beam truncation caused by a limited-size Rx aperture. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a 1-Gbit/s on-off keying (OOK) FSO transmission link using a structured “pin-like” beam with a limited-size Rx aperture at various distances. The pin-like beam is generated by passing a Gaussian beam through an “Airy-type” phase pattern in the radial direction. When propagating, this structured beam first narrows and then tends to maintain its narrow beam size over a fairly wide range of distances. In comparison to its Gaussian counterpart, our experimental results show that the pin-like beam has ∼13 to 8 dB less power loss at distances ranging from 0.45 m to 0.8 m with an Rx aperture diameter of 1 mm. Moreover, we simulate the propagation of the pin-like beam and show its relatively lower power loss for a wide distance variation in a longer link (e.g., ∼1 km) with a limited-size Rx aperture. Furthermore, our results show that the pin-like beam can have a wider range of low-power-loss distances than a Gaussian beam that is focused to a given distance.
© 2022 Optica Publishing Group
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Haoqian Song, Long Li, Kai Pang, Runzhou Zhang, Kaiheng Zou, Zhe Zhao, Jing Du, Hao Song, Cong Liu, Yinwen Cao, Ari N. Willner, Ahmed Almaiman, Robert Bock, Brittany Lynn, Moshe Tur, and Alan E. Willner
Opt. Lett. 45(11) 3042-3045 (2020)
Kai Pang, Haoqian Song, Xinzhou Su, Kaiheng Zou, Zhe Zhao, Hao Song, Ahmed Almaiman, Runzhou Zhang, Cong Liu, Nanzhe Hu, Shlomo Zach, Nadav Cohen, Brittany Lynn, Andreas F. Molisch, Robert W. Boyd, Moshe Tur, and Alan E. Willner
Opt. Lett. 45(22) 6310-6313 (2020)
Nanzhe Hu, Haoqian Song, Runzhou Zhang, Huibin Zhou, Cong Liu, Xinzhou Su, Hao Song, Kai Pang, Kaiheng Zou, Brittany Lynn, Moshe Tur, and Alan E. Willner
Opt. Lett. 47(14) 3539-3542 (2022)