Generation of electromagnetic waves with arbitrary orbital angular momentum modes

Abstract

Recently, much attention has been focused on beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) for radio communication. Here we experimentally demonstrate a planar-spiral phase plate (planar-SPP) for generating arbitrary mixed OAM beams. This proposed planar-SPP uses the concept of transmit array antenna having a perforated substrate to control the outputting phase for generating beams carrying OAM with arbitrary modes. As demonstrations, three planar-SPPs with a single OAM mode and two mixedOAM modes around 94 GHz have been investigated with design and experiments in this paper, respectively. The typical experimental intensity and phase patterns show that the proposed method of generating OAM beams really works.