Mr. Chirang R. Patel, Research Scholar in the Quantum Optical Technology Lab (QOT Lab), Department of Physics of IIST Thiruvananthapuram, working under the supervision of Dr. Ashok Kumar, has been awarded the OPTICA Best Oral Presentation Award at the International Conference, Frontiers in Optics and Photonics (FOP 2026), jointly organized by IIT Delhi and CSIR-NPL from September 25 to 28, 2026.

He presented a very recent research work from QOT Lab titled “Towards Demultiplexing of OAM-Multiplexed Bright Twin Beams.” The work demonstrates the generation of OAM-multiplexed quantum-correlated bright twin beams using four-wave mixing in hot Rb vapor and their demultiplexing using a Sagnac-based OAM mode sorter. Such OAM-based multiplexing and demultiplexing of bright twin beams offers a promising platform for high-capacity quantum communication, quantum networking, and parallel quantum information processing.