Control and steering of integrated optical vortices

Optical vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) have attracted considerable interest for applications in optical communication, sensing, and quantum information. Integrated photonics offers a compact and stable platform for their programmable control. We demonstrate a fully integrated photonic circuit for the programmable generation, manipulation and directional steering of vector vortex beams. Interference measurements confirm the programmable switching among five distinct OAM modes, identified by their topological charges. Vortex beam steering along four azimuthal directions is achieved by reconfiguring phase profiles. This integrated platform provides a controllable and reliable solution for advanced optical OAM devices in free-space data transmission, quantum communication, and structured light steering, detection and ranging.