Coherent detector for the non-separability measurement of vectorial structured light

Yize Liang; Shuai Cao; Lixian Liu; Fei Liu; Xukun Yin; Pei Lv; Yiming Zhang; Yunrui Zou; Liang Fang; Shuang Zheng; Zhenyu Wan; Teli Xi; Xiaopeng Shao; Jian Wang

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-02035-1

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Coherent detector for the non-separability measurement of vectorial structured light

Original Articles

- Coherent detector for the non-separability measurement of vectorial structured light
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 11, Pages: 3663-3675(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.School of Optoelectronic Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China
  2.Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074 Hubei, China
  3.Optics Valley Laboratory, Wuhan 430074 Hubei, China
  4.School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
  5.Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics, CAS, Xi’an 710119, China
  6.Hubei Optical Fundamental Research Center, Wuhan 430074, China
- Author bio：
  
  Teli Xi (tlxi@xidian.edu.cn)
  Xiaopeng Shao (xpshao@opt.ac.cn)
  Jian Wang (jwang@hust.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-02035-1
  CLC：
- Received：27 February 2025，
  
  Revised：2025-07-05，
  
  Accepted：28 July 2025，
  
  Published Online：26 September 2025，
  
  Published：30 November 2025
- Accepted：
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Liang, Y. et al. Coherent detector for the non-separability measurement of vectorial structured light. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3663-3675 (2025).
DOI：

Liang, Y. et al. Coherent detector for the non-separability measurement of vectorial structured light. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 3663-3675 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-02035-1.

摘要

Abstract

Atmospheric turbulence distorts the complex wavefront of light in free-space optical communication systems

leading to bit errors and even communication interruptions. Recently

it is found that the non-separability of vectorial structured light remains invariant when transmitting through atmospheric turbulence. This discovery offers a potential solution for turbulence-resilient communications—encoding based on the non-separability of vectorial structured light. To achieve such turbulence-resilient communications

efficient detection of the non-separability of vectorial structured light is essential

which acts as the receivers of such communication systems. So far

traditional non-separability detection schemes usually rely on bulky SLMs or DMDs

facing inherent trade-offs between single-shot capability and system compactness. In addition

the detection of mode-resolved non-separability contributions of vectorial superposition states has not yet been accomplished. Here

we propose and experimentally demonstrate a coherent detector to characterize the non-separability of vectorial structured light based on off-axis digital holography

which overcomes the limitations of traditional approaches by digitally decomposing spatial modes. Our approach may pave the way for turbulence-resilient optical communications based on non-separability coding methods and bring new insights into non-separability measurement.

关键词

Keywords

references

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