Transcript Abraham Chaibi CSIR South Africax - Princeton

Abraham Chaibi
2014
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research
Pretoria, South Africa
Modeling the Effect of Atmospheric Turbulence on OAM Signal Quality
with a Spinning Pipe Gas Lens
Abraham Chaibi1 and Andrew Forbes2,3,4
1 Princeton University
2 CSIR National Laser Centre, Pretoria, South Africa
2 School of Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
3 Laser Research Institute, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa
We send a beam carrying an integer value of orbital angular momentum (OAM) through a
spinning pipe gas lens and decompose the beam into its azimuthal components. The
decomposition is done by taking the optical inner product of the incoming mode with an
exp(ilθ) phase mask, which is programmed as a digital hologram on an spatial light
modulator. The pipe is heated and spun at a varying rate to simulate the effect of
atmospheric turbulence on OAM beams. The decomposition gives a measure of the effect of
turbulence on channel cross talk. Furthermore the spinning pipe induces lateral motion of
the beam, which leads to misalignment. The ability to estimate losses in OAM signal quality
due to misalignment and turbulence is relevant both for quantum optics and free space
optical communication.
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2008
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IONS Conference
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2008
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Best Part?
• Learned how to conduct independent lab work and write a scientific journal article
• Gained a general background in optics research in a short amount of time
• Met many Masters and PhD students from all over South Africa
• Developed a setup that will later be integrated in a quantum communications experiment
• Gave a 20 minute talk at the Africa IONS conference
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2008
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My Experiment
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2008
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Impact
• My development of turbulence modeling using the spinning pipe gas lens will be used by
the Mathematical Optics research group to study the effect of turbulence on free-space
optical communication
• I mentored an undergraduate student from the University of Fort Hare in his Honors (4th
year) project
• Helped start a program wherein students from the CSIR National Laser Center volunteer
time to teach math and science at disadvantaged high schools and middle schools
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2008
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Bramfontein Market
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Academic and Career Plans
• Independent research in photonics at Oxford during study abroad
• Graduate school at some point
• Interested in how technology research can most effectively be converted to private sector
business, especially with relation to renewable energy
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2008
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The Guesthouse
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Pretoria is extremely beautiful, the food is good, the people are friendly and the research is
interesting. What more can you ask for?
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2008
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