An optical vortex having an isolated point singularity is associated with the spatial structure of light waves. A polarization vortex (vector beam) with a polarization singularity has spatially variant polarizations. A phase vortex with phase singularity or screw dislocation has a spiral phase front. The optical vortex has recently gained increasing interest in optical trapping, optical tweezers, laser machining, microscopy, quantum information processing, and optical communications. In this paper, we review recent advances in optical communications using optical vortices. First, basic concepts of polarization/phase vortex modulation and multiplexing in communications and key techniques of polarization/phase vortex generation and (de)multiplexing are introduced. Second, free-space and fiber optical communications using optical vortex modulation and optical vortex multiplexing are presented. Finally, key challenges and perspectives of optical communications using optical vortices are discussed. It is expected that optical vortices exploiting the space physical dimension of light waves might find more interesting applications in optical communications and interconnects.

Orbital angular momentum (OAM), which describes tailoring the spatial physical dimension of light waves into a helical phase structure, has given rise to many applications in optical manipulation, microscopy, imaging, metrology, sensing, quantum science, and optical communications. Light beams carrying OAM feature two distinct characteristics, i.e., inherent orthogonality and unbounded states in principle, which are suitable for capacity scaling of optical communications. In this paper, we give an overview of OAM and beyond in free‐space optical communications. The fundamentals of OAM, concept of optical communications using OAM, OAM modulation (OAM modulation based on spatial light modulator, high‐speed OAM modulation, spatial array modulation), OAM multiplexing (spectrally efficient, high capacity, long distance), OAM multicasting (adaptive multicasting, N ‐dimensional multicasting), OAM communications in turbulence (adaptive optics, digital signal processing, auto‐alignment system), structured light communications beyond OAM (Bessel beams, Airy beams, vector beams), diverse and robust communications using OAM and beyond (multiple scenes, turbulence‐resilient communications, intelligent communications) are comprehensively reviewed. The prospects and challenges of optical communications using OAM and beyond are also discussed at the end. In the future, there will be more opportunities in exploiting extensive advanced applications from OAM beams to more general structured light.

We present a scheme to realize a controllable, scalable, low-cost, and versatile all-fiber orbital angular momentum (OAM) converter. The converter consists of a two-mode fiber (TMF) with its input terminal welded with a single-mode fiber, a mechanical long-period grating (LPG), a mechanical rotator, metal flat slabs, and a fiber polarization controller. The LPG is employed to convert the fundamental fiber mode to higher-order modes and the flat slabs are used to stress the TMF to adjust the relative phase difference between two orthogonal higher-order modes. Selective conversion from the ${\mathrm{LP}}_{01}$ mode to the ${\mathrm{LP}}_{11a}$, ${\mathrm{LP}}_{11b}$, ${\mathrm{OAM}}_{-1}$, or ${\mathrm{OAM}}_{+1}$ mode is demonstrated in the experiment.

Polarization is a basic property of light. Different from well-known linear, circular, and elliptical polarizations, which are spatially homogeneous, a vector light beam with spatially variant polarization states has received increasing interest for its expanded functionalities. In this Letter, we present a visible-light communication link exploiting high-base vector beam encoding/decoding. Using a single phase-only spatial light modulator, we generate 16 states of vector beams representing hexadecimal numbers. In the visible-light communication link experiment, we transmit a random high-base number sequence with 10,000 hexadecimal numbers and a $64\times 64$ pixel Lena gray image with 8192 hexadecimal numbers. The bit error rate is evaluated, and zero error among all received hexadecimal numbers is achieved, showing favorable link communication performance using the high-base vector beam encoding/decoding.