  Orbital angular momentum (OAM) has aroused a widespread interest in many
fields, especially in telecommunications due to its potential for unleashing
new capacity in the severely congested spectrum of commercial communication
systems. Beams carrying OAM have a helical phase front and a field strength
with a singularity along the axial center, which can be used for information
transmission, imaging and particle manipulation. The number of orthogonal OAM
modes in a single beam is theoretically infinite and each mode is an element of
a complete orthogonal basis that can be employed for multiplexing different
signals, thus greatly improving the spectrum efficiency. In this paper, we
comprehensively summarize and compare the methods for generation and detection
of optical OAM, radio OAM and acoustic OAM. Then, we represent the applications
and technical challenges of OAM in communications, including free-space optical
communications, optical fiber communications, radio communications and acoustic
communications. To complete our survey, we also discuss the state of art of
particle manipulation and target imaging with OAM beams.
