OAM Mode Selection and Space-Time Coding for Turbulence Mitigation in FSO Communication

Free space optical (FSO) communications using orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes has recently received a considerable interest. Propagating OAM modes through free space may be subject to atmospheric turbulence (AT) distortions that cause intermodal crosstalk and power disparities between OAM modes. In this article, we are interested in 2x2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) FSO coherent communication systems using OAM. We propose a selection criterion for OAM modes to minimize the impact of AT. To further improve the obtained performance, we propose a space-time (ST) coding scheme at the transmitter. Through numerical simulations of the error probability, we show that the penalty from AT is completely absorbed for weak AT and considerable coding gains are obtained in the strong AT regime.