Space-variant polarized Airy beam

TL;DR

This paper experimentally and theoretically investigates space-variant polarized Airy beams, demonstrating their self-healing polarization properties and how their amplitude and polarization structure reform during propagation despite truncation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel class of Airy beams with polarization structures and explores their self-healing polarization characteristics both experimentally and theoretically.

Findings

Polarization structure is preserved during propagation.

Amplitude and polarization structure tend to reform despite truncation.

Self-healing mechanism of polarization in Airy beams is elucidated.

Abstract

We experimentally generate an Airy beam with polarization structure while keeping its original amplitude and phase profile intact. This class of Airy beam preserves the acceleration properties. By monitoring their initial polarization structure we have provided insight concerning the self-healing mechanism of Airy beams. We investigate both theoretically and experimentally the self-healing polarization properties of the space-variant polarized Airy beams. Amplitude as well as the polarization structure tends to reform during propagation in spite of the severe truncation of the beam by finite apertures.