Design and generation of structured array beams with shape-invariant properties

Abstract

We theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate a flexible approach to generate an arbitrary shape-invariant structured array beam during propagation with the prescribed intensity distribution. An algorithm for generating flexible desired phase is presented according the reverse engineering and Huygens–Fresnel theory. In this paper, we outline the theory for creating the shape-invariant array beams. The numerical simulation results show that the shape of generated array beams is invariant and its size increases gradually from the near field to the far field. The generation of shape-invariant structured array beams can be realized by the phase-only and amplitude-only elements encoded on the spatial light modulators. The generated arbitrary shape-invariant structured array beams are verified and are in excellent agreement with the theory.

Keywords

• structured light
• array beams
• phase modulation
• beam shaping