Topological protection through randomness

Abstract

Topological light has recently gained interest due to its resilience against external perturbations. However topological protection remains mostly unexplored in the random and scattering media crucial for determining applicability for imaging and communications under real-world and sample conditions. Here we demonstrate the robustness of optical skyrmions to digitally simulated random phase masks with controlled distortion strengths. We first show topological protection of several skyrmion topologies engineered with superpositions of orthogonally polarized Laguerre-Gaussian modes. Next, we highlight the topological advantage by comparing with orbital angular momentum (OAM). Where the fragile OAM experiences crosstalk of 70%, the skyrmions experience no modal crosstalk. We illustrate this robustness by an example of noise-free encoding using topology without pre- or post-correction. This work paves the way for using topological light for versatile applications from high density error-free optical computing and communication to imaging through real complex random media.