Ultra-thin materials twist light into optical vortices for faster/ denser data transmission, and smaller, cheaper and more scalable optical devices

https://phys.org/news/2025-08-ultra-thin-materials-optical-vortices.html 

"carry more information, faster, ultra-secure... expensive/ complex manufacturing/ bulky crystals overcome using: hexagonal boron nitride or molybdenum disulfide, shinning circularly-polarized laser through layers stuck to each other through van der Waals force... birefringence converts almost half incoming light into twisted beams, enabling additional informational encoding dimension... future: improve conversion efficiency, compatibility with existing communication/ satellites, integrate into larger optical systems"