Orbital angular momentum mode-demultiplexing scheme with partial angular receiving aperture

For long distance orbital angular momentum (OAM) based transmission, the conventional whole beam receiving scheme encounters the difficulty of large aperture due to the divergence of OAM beams. We propose a novel partial receiving scheme, using a restricted angular aperture to receive and demultiplex multi-OAM-mode beams. The scheme is theoretically analyzed to show that a regularly spaced OAM mode set remain orthogonal and therefore can be de-multiplexed. Experiments have been carried out to verify the feasibility. This partial receiving scheme can serve as an effective method with both space and cost savings for the OAM communications. It is applicable to both free space OAM optical communications and radio frequency (RF) OAM communications.