Analysis of rotational Doppler shift with multi-ring vortex beams

Abstract

Vortex beams (VBs) with orbital angular momentum have shown great potential in the detection of transverse rotational motion of spatial targets which is undetectable in the classical radar scheme. However, most of the reported rotational Doppler measurements based on VBs can only be realized under ideal experimental conditions. The long-range detection is still a challenge. The detection distance based on rotational Doppler effect (RDE) is mainly limited by the scattered signal's signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this work, we investigated the influence of multi-ring vortex beams (MVBs) on the rotational Doppler frequency spectrum of scattered light from an object based on RDE and proposed a method of SNR enhancement of RDE signal. Firstly, different types of MVBs composed of a set of single-ring VBs with the same topological charge and different radii are designed, including multi-ring Laguerre Gaussian beam (MLGB), multi-ring perfect vortex beams (MPVB), and high-order Laguerre Gaussian beam (HLGB). Then, the influence of the number of rings and radial radius interval on the intensity profiles of MVBs and rotational Doppler frequency spectra under aligned and misaligned conditions is studied in detail. And the reasons why different types of MVBs lead to different SNR enhancement effectiveness with the increase of rings are also analyzed theoretically. Finally, proof-of-concept experiments were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the SNR enhancement method for RDE signals. The results showed that the amplitudes of the Doppler spectra generated by the MLGB and MPVB are improved substantially with the increase of rings, but the enhancement effect caused by the former is superior to the latter. The gain of HLGB on the RDE signal is the lowest. This study provides a useful reference for the optimization of rotational Doppler detection systems and may be of great application value in telemetry, long-range communication and optical imaging.