PROPAGATION OF AXIALLY-SYMMETRICAL FLATTENED GAUSSIAN BEAMS

Flattened Gaussian beams are characterized by a waist profile that pas ses in a continuous way from a nearly flat illuminated region to darkn ess. The steepness of the transition region is controlled by an intege r parameter N representing the order of the beam. Being expressible as a sum of N Laguerre-Gauss modes, a flattened Gaussian beam turns out to be very simple to study as far as propagation is concerned. We inve stigate the main features of the field distribution pertaining to a fl attened Gaussian beam throughout the space and present experimental re sults relating to the laboratory production of this type of beam. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America