TANDEM SYSTEMS FOR EFFICIENT GENERATION OF UNIFORM-AXIAL-INTENSITY BESSEL FIELDS

Optical systems consisting of two elements - a beam former and an aber ration corrector combined with a nonlinear axicon - are designed for t he transformation of Gaussian beams into Bessel fields with uniform ax ial intensity (without oscillations caused by boundary diffraction) ov er a specified line segment. Generation of superpositions of Bessel fi elds, which represent rotating and self-imaging fields, is also consid ered. The feasibility of realization of the tandem optical systems is assessed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.