Wireless Communications Using Millimeter-Wave Beams Carrying Orbital Angular Momentum

Over distances propagation of millimeter-wave beams in atmosphere is less affected by weather conditions (e. g. clouds, fog, smoke, snow, et al.) and turbulent atmosphere than optical beams does. So free-space information transfer using millimeter-wave beams has superiority over optical beams. In this paper, a new notion of millimeter-wave beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) used for free-space wireless communications (WC), was presented, which is a efficient solutions for issues of security and obstruction of line of sight of WC. The basic description and conception of OAM in a millimeter-wave beam was given. Encoding information as the OAM states in a single millimeter-wave beam with OAM were discussed and analyzed. Using OAM to encode the data offers an inherent security enhancement.