Propagation properties of elegant modified Bessel Gaussian beams

Abstract

A kind of optical beam with a radially parabolic propagating manner and intensity decay inversely proportional to propagating distance in the far field is investigated. The initial complex amplitudes of this kind of beam have the form of a Gaussian function multiplied by a m/2-order modified Bessel function and a helical phase factor with topological charge m. The arguments for Bessel and Gauss parts in the propagating solutions of these beams are complex and symmetric as elegant Laguerre and Hermite Gaussian beams. As a result, the beams can be referred to as elegant modified Bessel Gauss (EMBG) beams. Similar to non-diffractive beams such as Bessel and Airy beams, the EMBG beams also carry infinite power due to a transversely slowly decaying tail of complex amplitude. The EMBG beams demonstrate intermediate propagating properties between non-diffractive and finite-power beams. Unlike non-diffractive beams that never spread their power and finite-power beams that always diverge in a linear manner and spread their power by inversely square law in the far field, the EMBG beams demonstrate a far-field parabolic propagating manner and decay their power by inversely linear law. In addition, the EMBG beams have total Gouy phase, which is only half of that of elegant Laguerre Gauss beams with the same topological charge, and have far-field intensity distributions regardless of the beam waist radius in the initial plane. The propagating and focusing properties of EMBG beams represent an intermediate status between the non-diffractive and finite-power beams.