Diffractive deep neural network based adaptive optics scheme for vortex beam in oceanic turbulence

Vortex beam carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) is disturbed by oceanic turbulence (OT) when propagating in underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) system. Adaptive optics (AO) is used to compensate for distortion and improve the performance of the UWOC system. In this work, we propose a diffractive deep neural network (DDNN) based AO scheme to compensate for the distortion caused by OT, where the DDNN is trained to obtain the mapping between the distortion intensity distribution of the vortex beam and its corresponding phase screen representating OT. The intensity pattern of the distorted vortex beam obtained in the experiment is input to the DDNN model, and the predicted phase screen can be used to compensate the distortion in real time. The experiment results show that the proposed scheme can extract quickly the characteristics of the intensity pattern of the distorted vortex beam, and output accurately the predicted phase screen. The mode purity of the compensated vortex beam is significantly improved, even with a strong OT. Our scheme may provide a new avenue for AO techniques, and is expected to promote the communication quality of UWOC system.