Robust Far-Field Optical Image Transmission with Structured Random Light Beams
Yonglei Liu, Xuan Zhang, Zhen Dong, Deming Peng, Yahong Chen, Fei Wang, Yangjian Cai
Abstract
The ability to overcome the adverse effect induced by the obstacles within the transmission link is a central challenge in long-distance optical image transmission and is significantly crucial in free-space optical communication. In this work, we introduce an efficient protocol to realize the robust far-field optical image-signal transmission by modulating the spatial-coherence structure of a partially coherent random light source. The image information encoded in the spatial-coherence structure can be stably transmitted to the far field and can resist the influence of obstructions within the communication link. This is due to the self-reconstruction property of the spatial-coherence structure embedded with the cross phase in the far field. We demonstrate experimentally that the image information can be recovered well by measuring the second-order spatial-coherence structure of the obstructed random light in the far field. Our findings open a door for robust optical signal transmission through the complex environment and may find application in optical communication through a turbulent atmosphere.