Approaching the Fundamental Limit of Orbital-Angular-Momentum Multiplexing through a Hologram Metasurface

Establishing and approaching the fundamental limit of orbital-angular-momentum (OAM) multiplexing are necessary and increasingly urgent for current multiple-input multiple-output research. In this work, we elaborate the fundamental limit in terms of independent scattering channels (or the degrees of freedom of scattered fields) through angular-spectral analysis, in conjunction with a rigorous Green's function method. The scattering-channel limit is universal for arbitrary spatial-mode multiplexing, which is launched by a planar electromagnetic device, such as antenna, metasurface, etc., with a predefined physical size. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally the limit by a phase-only metasurface hologram that transforms orthogonal OAM modes to plane-wave modes scattered at critically separated angular-spectral regions. Particularly, a minimax optimization algorithm is applied to suppress angular-spectrum aliasing, achieving good performances in both full-wave simulation and experimental measurement at microwave frequencies. This work offers a theoretical upper bound and corresponding approach route for engineering designs of OAM multiplexing.