Realization and measurement of Airy transform of Gaussian vortex beams

Abstract:
“Airy transformation is a useful technique to modulate amplitude and phase of a light beam, which has important applications in particle trapping/manipulation, optical communications and optical imaging. However, most of the studies only focused on the Airy transform of Gaussian beams and other vortex-free beams in the past. In this paper, the Airy transform of Gaussian vortex beams, which are the most common vortex beams, is investigated. A universal analytical expression of the Gaussian vortex beams with topological charge (TC) m passing through an Airy transform optical system is derived. We carry out a detailed study on the output beams’ characteristics after the Airy transform of the Gaussian vortex beams with m = ± 1 and ± 2. The analytical expressions for the centroid, the beam spot size, the divergence angle and the beam propagation factor of the output beams are derived. The effects of the Airy control parameters and the TC on the normalized intensity distribution, the phase distribution, the centroid, the beam spot size and the beam propagation factor of the output beams are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The experimental results agree reasonably well with the theoretical results which illustrate the properties of Airy transform of the Gaussian vortex beams.”