The Generation of Nondiffracting Beams Array with Arbitrary Order by Phase Holograms

Nondiffracting beams are of interest for optical potential applications owing to their properties of smaller central spot, longer propagation distance and so on. A phase-holograms-based method of generation of nondiffracting beams array with arbitrary order is proposed in this paper. If a phase hologram is displayed on a phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM), when a collimated monochromatic plane wave illuminates it, an annulus with high concentration of energy is obtained in the Fourier plane. Then through the Fourier transform again, a nondiffracting beam will be generated. It is able to generate arbitrary order nondiffracting beams with high diffractive efficiency. More significantly, if a phase-hologram-array that possesses the same eigenvalue is utilized, a unique bright annulus will be generated in the Fourier plane because of the shift-invariance of Fourier transform and the consistency of phase hologram design. Then through the Fourier transform again, a nondiffracting beams array will be generated. Furthermore, the location and the order of each individual nondiffracting beam can be customized according requirement. Experiment results are in good agreement with the numerical simulation and the theoretical analysis.