无衍射特殊光束的产生与三维表征

无衍射光束(如贝塞尔光束、艾里光束)因具有无衍射、自愈合的特性, 在很多领域都有广泛的应用. 本文提出使用纯相位型空间光调制器对光场的复振幅进行调控, 从而可以产生多种复杂模式的无衍射光束, 如强度可独立调控的多个零阶贝塞尔光束, 两个高阶贝塞尔光束干涉生成的花瓣状无衍射光束, 具有多个主瓣的加速光束等特殊的无衍射光束. 通过在待测焦场附近放置一个平面反射镜, 使其沿光轴快速扫描光场, 并由数字相机同步拍摄反射回来的一系列二维光场强度分布信息, 可实现对无衍射光束三维光场强度分布的快速测量和表征. 本实验方法和技术可以快速产生各种复杂的特殊光场并获得其精确的三维可视化重建效果, 在光学显微、光学俘获、光学微加工等领域有潜在的应用价值.

Generation and three-dimensional characterization of complex nondiffracting optical beams

Nondiffracting optical beams play an important role in contemporary optics due to their special propagation characteristics, i.e., nondiffracting in a diffraction-free zone, shape recovering behind obstacles or self-healing property. Liquid crystal spatial light modulators (LC-SLM) are widely used for generating nondiffracting optical beams in virtue of programmable and dynamic features. In this paper, we propose a complex amplitude modulation technique that can encode any scalar complex fields for generating the complex nondiffracting beams. Before experiment, the phase modulation curve of the phase-only LC-SLM is optimized into being linear in a range of 0-2πby gamma correction in the way of variable binary phase gratings. Then, we experimentally generate the nonaccelerating beams, e.g., two zero-order Bessel beams with variable intensity distributions, and the nondiffracting petal-like beams generated by interfering with two coaxial Bessel beams. By scanning a reflection mirror near the focal region along the optical axis, a stack of two-dimensional images is acquired, and then a three-dimensional intensity profile of the beam is reconstructed with a software. We also experimentally demonstrate a new kind of multi-main-lobe accelerating beam with parabolic accelerating trajectory by modifying the spatial spectrum of classical Airy beam. Compared with the so-called vectorial accelerating beam with multiple main lobes in spheroidal coordinates, our generated two-main-lobe accelerating beam has a very high energy efficiency. The self-healing property of the two-main-lobe accelerating beam is also demonstrated. The presented technique can generate a variety of complex nondiffracting optical beams rapidly and obtain their three-dimensional intensity distributions accurately, which has potential applications in the fields of optical microscope, optical date storage, optical trapping, optical micromachining, etc.