Arbitrary spatial mode sorting in a multimode fiber
Abstract
Sorting spatial optical modes is a key challenge that underpins many applications from superresolved imaging to high-dimensional quantum key distribution. However, to date, implementations of optical mode sorters only operate on specific sets of modes, such as those carrying orbital angular momentum, and therefore lack versatility with respect to operation with an arbitrary spatial basis. Here we demonstrate an arbitrary spatial mode sorter by harnessing the random mode mixing process occurring during light propagation in a multimode fiber by wave-front shaping. By measuring the transmission matrix of the fiber, we show sorting of up to 25 transverse spatial modes of the Fourier, Laguerre-Gaussian, and random basis to an arbitrary set of positions at the output. Our approach provides a spatial mode sorter that is compact, easy to fabricate, programable, and usable with any spatial basis, which is promising for quantum and classical information science.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review A
- Pub Date:
- June 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevA.101.063830
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2004.05585
- Bibcode:
- 2020PhRvA.101f3830D
- Keywords:
-
- Physics - Optics;
- Quantum Physics
- E-Print:
- 8 pages, 6 figures