1. Abraham Chaibi 2014 Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Pretoria, South Africa

2. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA Modeling the Effect of Atmospheric Turbulence on OAM Signal Quality with a Spinning Pipe Gas Lens Abraham Chaibi 1 and Andrew Forbes 2,3,4 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.

3. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA IONS Conference

4. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA 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

5. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA My Experiment

6. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA 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 (4 th 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

7. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA Bramfontein Market

8. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA 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

9. © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA The Guesthouse

10. THANKS FOR LISTENING © CSIR 2008 WWW.CSIR.CO.ZA Pretoria is extremely beautiful, the food is good, the people are friendly and the research is interesting. What more can you ask for?