Arbitrary nonparaxial accelerating periodic beams and spherical shaping of light

Amaury Mathis (1) , François Courvoisier (1) , Remo Giust (1) , Luca Furfaro (1) , Maxime Jacquot (1) , Luc Froehly (1) , John Michael Dudley (1)

1 FEMTO-ST - Franche-Comté Électronique Mécanique, Thermique et Optique - Sciences et Technologies (UMR 6174)

We report the observation of arbitrary accelerating beams (ABs) designed using a nonparaxial description of optical caustics. We use a spatial light modulator-based setup and techniques of Fourier optics to generate circular and Weber beams subtending over 95 deg of arc. Applying a complementary binary mask also allows the generation of periodic ABs taking the forms of snake-like trajectories, and the application of a rotation to the caustic allows the first experimental synthesis of optical ABs upon the surface of a sphere in three dimensions.

Domaines: Optique / photonique; Optique [physics.optics]

Amaury Mathis, François Courvoisier, Remo Giust, Luca Furfaro, Maxime Jacquot, et al.. Arbitrary nonparaxial accelerating periodic beams and spherical shaping of light. Optics Letters, 2013, 38, pp.2218 - 2220. ⟨10.1364/OL.38.002218⟩. ⟨hal-00910315⟩