Experimental analysis of adaptive optics correction methods on the beam carrying orbital angular momentum mode through oceanic turbulence

In recent years, as the demand for underwater communication has increased, underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) has attracted a lot of attentions. Meanwhile, orbital angular momentum (OAM) has been applied in UWOC system to increase communication link capacity. However, the aberrations caused by oceanic turbulence (OT) is unavoidable, which results in serious intermodal crosstalk. Usually, adaptive optics (AO) is used to compensate these distortion aberrations. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the influence of the distortion caused by OT, and evaluate the performance of AO correction algorithms, including Shack-Hartmann (SH), Stochastic-Parallel-Gradient-Descent (SPGD) and Gerchberg-Saxton (GS) algorithms. During the experiment, OT is simulated by using improved random phase screen model. We discuss the influence of various parameters of OT, including relative strength of temperature and salinity, strength of OT C-n(2), and propagation distance, on the compensation effect with and without correction algorithms. The results show that all the three AO algorithms have good compensation effect on the distortion caused by OT, and GS algorithm has a better capability than the other two algorithms. Additionally, when the iteration numbers is less than 100, the compensation effect of GS and SPGD algorithms becomes more obvious as the iteration numbers increases, and GS algorithm is superior to SPGD algorithm. This work is beneficial to aberration correction of OAM-based UWOC system.

Automated summary

This study experimentally demonstrated the influence of distortion caused by oceanic turbulence on adaptive optics correction algorithms, including Shack-Hartmann, Stochastic-Parallel-Gradient-Descent, and Gerchberg-Saxton algorithms. The results showed that all three algorithms had good compensation effects on the distortions caused by oceanic turbulence, with Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm performing better than the other two algorithms.