Approach to multiplexing fiber communication with cylindrical vector beams

Cylindrical vector beams (CVBs), including radial, azimuthal, and hybrid polarization vortex states, are based on the polarization singularity and regarded as the eigenmodes of fiber. In this Letter, we propose and demonstrate CVB (de)multiplexing communication in a few-mode fiber (FMF). We simulate the eight CVB modes, including the ±1 orders and the ±2 orders supported by the FMF. We measure the mode purities of the ±1-order and the ±2-order CVBs, which can reach 67.87%, 69.26%, 73.84%, and 71.95% after transmission in the 5 km FMF. The mode cross talk between the CVBs and their adjacent orders is less than −7.54 dB. In the experiment, we demonstrate four modes of coaxial CVB multiplexing communication with the orders of −2 and spatially orthogonal polarization states. The mode cross talk is less than −23.35 dB for all channels. CVB modes carrying 10 Gbit/s on–off keying signals are transmitted in the 5 km FMF and achieve bit-error rates below the forward error correction threshold of 3.8×10−3.