NewsPhysics

Researchers have developed a novel method for underwater communication utilizing acoustic vortices, promising enhanced robustness against environmental disturbances. This breakthrough is critical for applications such as ocean monitoring, submarine exploration, and military operations, where traditional flat-wave acoustic communications are easily degraded by the heterogeneous nature of the marine environment.

The team has demonstrated the generation and detection of these acoustic vortices, which are sound waves with a helical phase front around a central axis, endowing them with orbital angular momentum. This property makes them intrinsically more resilient to scattering and changes in sound speed caused by variations in temperature, salinity, and pressure in water. The technique relies on modulating the phase of acoustic waves to create these vortex structures, allowing information to be encoded in different orbital angular momentum states.

“Researchers have developed a novel method for underwater communication utilizing acoustic vortices, promising enhanced robustness against environmental disturbances.”