Hybrid OAM-Amplitude multiplexing and demultiplexing of incoherent optical states

We propose multiplexing and demultiplexing of Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) states realized with incoherent beams to increase the effective transmission area in a free space optical communication link. The overlapped states of the beams have been effectively distinguished using a hybrid OAM-Amplitude scheme exploiting only a small portion of the entire wavefront at the receiver. The method has been theoretically formalized and the transmission experimentally tested up to 1 Mbit/s. The proposed method is suitable for high density transmission in long-distance free space optical communication systems.