High Capacity Turbulence-Resilient Free-Space Chaotic Optical Communication Based on Vector Optical Field Manipulation

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a turbulence-resilient free space chaotic optical communication system based on vector optical field manipulation. In this scheme, the utilization of vector beam multiplexing technology not only enhances transmission fidelity in the turbulence link but also increases the transmission capacity of the free-space chaotic communication system. A 22 Gbps non-return-zero on-off keying spatial multiplexed free-space chaotic optical communication that is resistant to turbulence is successfully demonstrated. We investigate and compare the effect of using different optical field modes on the chaotic synchronization quality and communication performance under different turbulence strengths, which includes the scalar Gaussian modes with X and Y polarizations, and V-point 1st-order cylindrical vector modes with azimuthal and radial types. The experimental results reveal that employing vector mode leads to a 10% ∼ 13% improvement in the probability of high-quality synchronization and an 8% ∼ 12% reduction in the communication interruption probability compared to the Gaussian mode. Passive turbulence-resilient technique based on vector optical field manipulation is expected to provide new solutions for developing future FSO chaotic communication systems with large capacity and high transmission reliability.