Self-healing property of a caustic optical beam

Abstract

It is well known that Bessel beams and the other families of propagation-invariant optical fields have the property of self-healing when obstructed by an opaque object. Here it is shown that there exists another kind of field distribution that can have an analog property. In particular, we demonstrate that a class of caustic wave fields, whose transverse intensity patterns change on propagation, when perturbed by an opaque object can reappear at a further plane as if they had not been obstructed. The physics of the phenomenon is fully explained and shown to be related to that of self-healing propagation invariant optical fields.

Helico-conical optical beams self-heal

“…The K 0 HCOBs reconstruct faster than the K 1 HCOBs, given the same block size and the same propagation distance. We notice that the beam with a π block size (not shown) gives a very low correlation coefficient, which is consistent with the results previously reported for other self-healing beams [4,6]. The HCOB reconstruction also depends on the orientation of the block, as shown in Fig.…”

“…The study of the self-healing properties of beams is of great interest in optics [1][2][3][4][5][6]. An optical beam is said to be self-healing when, after propagation, its transverse intensity profile is hardly affected by a small perturbation-a block-that has been placed in its path [1][2][3][4][5]. The surge of interest in self-healing beams is bouyed mainly by its range of applications; self-healing can be advantageous, for instance, in beam propagation through scattering and turbulent media, and in optical manipulation [7,8].…”

“…© 2013 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 140.3300, 260.6042, 260.0260, 070.2580. The study of the self-healing properties of beams is of great interest in optics [1][2][3][4][5][6]. An optical beam is said to be self-healing when, after propagation, its transverse intensity profile is hardly affected by a small perturbation-a block-that has been placed in its path [1][2][3][4][5].…”

“…Optical beams that exhibit self-healing include Bessel beams (BBs) [6,7,9], caustic beams [4], Airy beams [1,8], Pearcey beams [2], the nonparaxial Mathieu and Weber accelerating beams [10], and some forms of LaguerreGaussian (LG) beams [3]. In the case of the BBs and Airy beams, self-healing happens at a relatively small propagation distance, while LG beams self-heal at a distance of the order of the Rayleigh length [2,3].…”

“…In the case of the BBs and Airy beams, self-healing happens at a relatively small propagation distance, while LG beams self-heal at a distance of the order of the Rayleigh length [2,3]. Self-healing is independent of the diffracting nature of the beams, as shown by caustic [4] and LG beams [3].…”