Open Access
28 February 2024 Light correcting light with nonlinear optics
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Abstract

Structured light, where complex optical fields are tailored in all their degrees of freedom, has become highly topical of late, advanced by a sophisticated toolkit comprising both linear and nonlinear optics. Removing undesired structure from light is far less developed, leveraging mostly on inverting the distortion, e.g., with adaptive optics or the inverse transmission matrix of a complex channel, both requiring that the distortion be fully characterized through appropriate measurement. We show that distortions in spatially structured light can be corrected through difference-frequency generation in a nonlinear crystal without any need for the distortion to be known. We demonstrate the versatility of our approach using a wide range of aberrations and structured light modes, including higher-order orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams, showing excellent recovery of the original undistorted field. To highlight the efficacy of this process, we deploy the system in a prepare-and-measure communications link with OAM, showing minimal cross talk even when the transmission channel is highly aberrated, and outline how the approach could be extended to alternative experimental modalities and nonlinear processes. Our demonstration of light-correcting light without the need for measurement opens an approach to measurement-free error correction for classical and quantum structured light, with direct applications in imaging, sensing, and communication.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE and CLP under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
Sachleen Singh, Bereneice Sephton, Wagner Tavares Buono, Vincenzo D’Ambrosio, Thomas Konrad, and Andrew Forbes "Light correcting light with nonlinear optics," Advanced Photonics 6(2), 026003 (28 February 2024). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.AP.6.2.026003
Received: 30 November 2023; Accepted: 19 January 2024; Published: 28 February 2024
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KEYWORDS
Distortion

Difference frequency generation

Nonlinear optics

Crystals

Structured light

Aberration correction

Nonlinear dynamics

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