Abstract

Diffraction-free beam will alleviate the problems of beam spreading when the energy of beam is being transferred to a target. Recently, Durnin¹ has shown that a Bessel beam can propagate in a diffraction-free mode. A holographically generated diffraction-free beam suffers loss because of its limited efficiency. Refractive systems have already been designed for circularly Gaussian to circularly uniform² and annularly Gaussian to circularly uniform beam transformation. By using a similar approach, we designed a refracting system capable of transforming a circularly Gaussian laser beam to a Bessel beam with almost unity efficiency. The surface slope, radii of curvature and other important parameters are optimized for ease of fabrication.

© 1990 Optical Society of America