Carving light beams

TL;DR

This paper extends the Frozen Wave method to enable simultaneous control of both the longitudinal and transverse structures of non-diffracting light beams, enhancing their applicability in various optical fields.

Contribution

The authors developed an extended Frozen Wave technique that allows for precise control of both longitudinal and transverse beam patterns during propagation.

Findings

Successfully controlled transverse and longitudinal beam structures.

Enhanced beam shaping capabilities for practical applications.

Potential for improved optical manipulation and lithography.

Abstract

Some years after the appearance of the so-called non-diffracting beams, there was the development of methods capable of structuring them spatially, being the so called Frozen Waves method the first and, perhaps, the most efficient one. That method allowed modelling the longitudinal intensity pattern of non-diffracting beams, being, however, little efficient in controlling their transverse spatial pattern, granting only the possibility of choosing their transverse dimensions, which remain invariant throughout the propagation. In this work, we have extended the Frozen Wave method in such a way to control, in addition to the longitudinal pattern, the transverse beam structure along the propagation. The new transversally and longitudinally structured beams can have potential applications in areas such as photonics, optical manipulation, optical atom guidance, lithography, etc..