Propagation of Airy-related beams generated from at-topped

Gaussian beams through a chiral slab

Zhirong Liu
a,b
, Daomu Zhao
a,n
a
Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
b
School of Basic, East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang 330013, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 March 2013
Received in revised form
12 July 2013
Accepted 13 July 2013
Available online 9 August 2013
Keywords:
ABCD transforms
Chiral media
Laser beam shaping
Propagation
a b s t r a c t
We derived the analytical expression for the propagation of Airy-related beams generated from at-
topped Gaussian beams through an ABCD optical system, and use it to study the propagation of this type
of beams through a chiral slab. Several inuence factors, such as the optical beams order N and the chiral
parameter of the chiral medium, on the beam propagation properties both in near- and far-zones are
discussed in detail. It is shown that the Airy tails of high order beams decay more quickly than those of
low order beams in the chiral medium; the constructive interference effect between the LCP
(left-circularly polarized) and RCP (right-circularly polarized) beams becomes more signicant as the
chiral parameter increases; the LCP and RCP beams are not separated in the near-zone, while the two
beams are obviously separated in the far-zone, and accordingly the interference peaks decrease as the
propagation distance increases in the chiral slab.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Non-spreading or non-diffraction (also named diffraction-free)
beams are by denition localized optical wave packets that remain
invariant during propagation. Due to their novel features this
intriguing class of wave packets have received sustained attention
[19]. In 1979, Scholars Berry and Balazs made an important
observation within the context of quantum mechanics: they
theoretically demonstrated that the Schrdinger equation describ-
ing a free particle can exhibit a non-spreading Airy wave packet
solution [1]. Bessel beams, initially predicted theoretically and
demonstrated experimentally by Durnin et al. in 1987, is perhaps
the best known example of diffraction-free wave [2]. In 2007,
a nite-energy Airy beam is rst introduced theoretically and
demonstrated experimentally by extending Berry and Balazss
innite-energy Airy model by Siviloglou and Christodoulides
[3,4]. Owing to their non-diffraction properties, Airy beams have
ability to reconstruct themselves during propagation even though
parts of the beams are distorted or obstructed [5]. The Airy beams
have been identied for unique features, such as weak diffraction,
transverse acceleration [3,4], and self-healing [5]. And over very
recent years, Airy beams have attracted a great deal of interest in
applications such as optical clearing micro-particles [6], plasma
physics [7], optical micro-manipulation [8,9] and other elds.
In general, the nite energy Airy beam can be generated from the
fundamental Gaussian beam through a Fourier transformation pro-
vided that a cubic phase is imposed [4]. Meanwhile, many Airy-
related beams have been proposed or generated by making some
changes in the methods of generating Airy beams [1016]. For
example, using the partially coherent Gaussian beam as the incident
beam, a broadband white light Airy beam can be generated, and its
decay parameter depends on the spatial coherence of the incident
beam [10]; by adding a special apodization mask in the light path, a
reduced side-lobe Airy beam can be generated that has an effectively
enhanced central lobe, and the side lobe is reduced compared with
the common Airy beam [11].
It is known that chirality can lift the degeneracy of two circular
polarizations [17]. When a linearly polarized beam is incident
normally upon a chiral slab, it will be split into two circularly
polarized beams (left-circularly polarized and right-circularly polar-
ized beams) at the interface with different phase velocity propagat-
ing in the chiral slab. This circular birefringence of the chiral medium
is of crucial importance in the elds of biochemistry, chemistry, and
medicine. In this work, we investigate the propagation of Airy-
related beam, which is generated from Airy transform from at-
topped Gaussian beams [18], through a chiral slab [1925].
2. Propagation characteristics of the Airy-related beam
through a chiral slab
Matrix optics is a powerful and analytical method to deal with
the beam propagation problem. For a beam through a chiral slab,
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0143-8166/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2013.07.011
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 571 888 63887; fax: +86 571 879 51328.
E-mail address: zhaodaomu@yahoo.com (D. Zhao).
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 52 (2014) 1318
the corresponding transfer matrix of the optical system can be
written as [26]
A
L
B
L
C
L
D
L
_ _

1 z=n
L
0 1
_ _
;
A
R
B
R
C
R
D
R
_ _

1 z=n
R
0 1
_ _
: 1
In Eq. (1), n
L
n
0
=1 n
0
k
0
; n
R
n
0
=1n
0
k
0
denote the
refractive indices of the left-circularly polarized (LCP) and right-
circularly polarized (RCP) beams, respectively. n
0
and represent
the original refractive index and the chiral parameter of the chiral
slab, respectively. k
0
2=
0
is the wave number of the optical
wave with
0
being the wavelength of the Airy-related beam in
vacuum. Thus, the wave number of the left-circularly polarized
and right-circularly polarized Airy-related beams in the chiral slab
is k
J
n
J
k
0
, where J L,R.
Here, we investigate the dynamics of one-dimensional (1D)
Airy-related beam through a chiral slab. A symmetric 2D case can
be obtained by replacing the coordinate x with y, and multiplying
the two scalar elds together. The electric eld prole of Airy-
related beams generated from at-topped Gaussian beams can be
expressed as [18]
E
1
x
1
; z 0 2

p
A
0

N
n 1
1
n1

a
n
p
N
N
n
_ _
exp
2a
3
n
3
_ _
Ai
x
1

a
2
n
_ _
exp
a
n
x
1

_ _
:
2
In Eq. (2), Ai indicates the Airy function, x
1
= represents a
dimensionless transverse coordinate, denotes an arbitrary trans-
verse scale, a
n
w
2
0
=4n
2
represents the modulation parameter
so as to ensure containment of the innite Airy tail, A
0
is a
constant related with the beam power, N denotes the order of
the Airy-related beams,
N
n
_ _
is a binomial coefcient, and w
0
is
the waist size of fundamental Gaussian beam with N 1. It is clear
from Eq. (2) that the Airy-related beams generated from at-
topped Gaussian beams can be considered as a nite sum of
common nite energy Airy beams, and Eq. (2) becomes the
common nite energy Airy beam when N 1.
To visualize the shape of Airy-related beams characterized by Eq.
(2), a preliminary demonstration is shown in Fig. 1(a) for the at-
topped Gaussian beams, and (b) for the Airy-related beams gener-
ated from at-topped Gaussian beams of different orders, respec-
tively. All of the curves in Fig. 1 have been normalized to the peak
intensity value. It is apparent from Fig. 1(a) that the irradiance
prole becomes at-topped when N41, and the at zone occupies
a larger fraction of the beam prole when the value of N increases.
And it is also clearly seen from Fig. 1(b) that the Airy-related beams
generated from at-topped Gaussian beams N41 possess proles
similar to those of the Airy beam generated from the fundamental
Gaussian beam N 1, and the Airy tails of higher order beams
decay more quickly than that of lower order beams. Furthermore,
the peak of the rst lobe is a little shifted in the positive x-direction
when the value of N increases, which can be inferred from the Airy
function in Eq. (2). So the Airy-related beams can be modulated by
varying the beam order N.
Within the framework of paraxial approximation, the propaga-
tion of a beam through the rst order ABCD optical system is
described by the generalized HuygensFresnel diffraction integral,
which is known as Collins formula [27,26]
E
J
x; z

ik
0
2B
J

_
1
1
exp
ik
0
2B
J
A
J
x
2
1
2x
1
x D
J
x
2

_ _
E
1
x
1
; z 0dx
1
3
In Eq. (3) the superscripts J L,R denote LCP and RCP, respectively.
To calculate this integral, the Airy function can be written in terms
of the integral representation [28]
Aix
1
2
_
1
1
exp
iu
3
3
ixu
_ _
du: 4
On substituting Eqs. (2) and (4) into Eq. (3), after tedious integral
calculations, one obtains the expression of Airy-related beams
eld distribution in an arbitrary plane z40:
E
J
x; z
2A
0

A
J
_
N
n 1
1
n1

a
n
p
N
N
n
_ _
exp
ik
0
C
J
x
2
2A
J
_ _
Airy
x
A
J

B
J2
4
4
k
2
0
A
J2

iB
J
a
n
A
J
k
0

2
a
2
n
_ _
exp
a
n
x
A
J

a
n
B
J2
2A
J2
k
2
0

iB
J3
8A
J3
k
3
0

6
_

ia
2
n
B
J
A
J
k
0

iB
J
x
2A
J2
k
0

iB
J
6
2
k
0
A
J

2a
3
n
3
_
: 5
In Eq. (5) A
J
, B
J
, C
J
and D
J
are elements of the optical transfer
matrix for the LCP and RCP beams in the chiral slab, respectively.
When the Airy-related beam propagates along the z-direction, the
optical eld is split into two components, e.g., the LCP and RCP
beams. And the total eld prole in the chiral slab is given by
Ex E
L
x E
R
x: 6
Thus, the total intensity of Airy-related beam in the plane z40 can
be expressed as
I jE
L
xj
2
jE
R
xj
2
I
int
; 7
with
I
int
E
L
xE
Rn
x E
R
xE
Ln
x; 8
where I
int
denotes the interference term, and n indicates the
complex conjugation. By complex but straightforward deduction,
Fig. 1. The normalized intensity distribution of (a) at-topped Gaussian beams and (b) Airy-related beams generated from at-topped Gaussian beams of different orders N.
Z. Liu, D. Zhao / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 52 (2014) 1318 14
one can nd that the interference intensity satises the following
relation
I
int
exp 2
a
0
x
x
0
_ _
exp a
0
z
2
1 n
2
0
k
2
0

k
2
0
x
4
0
n
2
0
_ _
: 9
Eq. (9) indicates that I
int
is sensitive to the propagating distance z
and the chiral parameter of the medium. Eqs. (5)(9) are the
main analytical results obtained in this paper, which are conve-
nient for studying the propagation characteristics of Airy-related
beams in a chiral slab.
3. Numerical simulation and analysis
Without loss of generality, in the following simulations we
choose the parameters of the Airy-related beam as:
0
532 nm,
100 m, w
0
50 m; and the original refractive index n
0
3.
On substituting from Eqs. (1) and (5) into Eq. (7), one can obtain
the analytical expression for the Airy-related beam in the chiral
slab. The propagation of the Airy-related beams of different orders,
which are generated from Gaussian beams and at-topped Gaus-
sian beams, respectively, in the chiral slab with the chiral para-
meter 0:16=k
0
is shown in Fig. 2(a)(d) for N 1, and
(e)(h) for N 10, respectively.
The propagation of Airy-related beams of different order in the
chiral slab with 0:16=k
0
is shown in Fig. 2(a)(d). From the
normalized intensity distributions of the LCP and RCP beams [see
from Fig. 2(a) and (b)], one can see that the circularly polarized Airy
beams of opposite handedness propagate along two different curved
trajectories in the chiral slab. And one can also see from Fig. 2(c) that
the interference pattern between LCP and RCP beams is quite different
from the situation of independent propagation of each beam. Due to
the strong interference effect, the total eld is greatly distorted in the
overlapping areas of the two beams [see from Fig. 2(d)]. For the
convenience of comparison, the case for N 10 is shown in Fig. 2
(e)(h), and one can nd from Fig. 2(a) and (e) that both the LCP and
RCP beams of high order have a shorter nonspreading distance, in
which distance the beam can maintain its original intensity distribu-
tion with no measurable spreading. Meanwhile, one can also see from
Fig. 2(c) and (g) that the interference fringes of lower order LCP and
RCP beams is clearer than that of higher order beams, which indicates
that the interference effect between lower order LCP and RCP beams is
stronger than that between higher order beams.
The case of the chiral parameter 0:28=k
0
is shown in Fig. 3.
Other parameters are the same as those in Fig. 2. Comparing Fig. 2
(c) and Fig. 3(c), or Fig. 2(g) and Fig. 3(g), one can nd that the
constructive interference effect between the LCP and RCP beams
becomes more signicant as the chiralitys parameter increases.
Fig. 4(a)(j) shows the intensity distribution of Airy-related
beams at the near-zone with z 200 mm. The chiral parameter in
Fig. 4(a)(e) is 0:16=k
0
, and in Fig. 4(f)(j) 0:28=k
0
, and
other parameters are the same. It is clearly seen from Fig. 4(a) and
(f) that the LCP and RCP beams of the same order are not
separated, and nearly overlapped together at the near-zone, so
the interference between them is fairly strong [see Fig. 4(d) and
(i)], and accordingly the oscillating intensity curves can be seen in
Fig. 4(e) and (j).
Fig. 5(a)(j) shows the intensity distribution of Airy-related
beams in the far-zone with z 800 mm. Other parameters are
same as Fig. 4(a)(j). Obviously, one can see from Fig. 5(a) and
(f) that the LCP and RCP beams of the same order are separated
and not overlapped at the far-zone, for the two beams propagate
along different curved trajectories in the chiral slab. The amplitude
of oscillation decreases as the propagation distance increases, so
interference between them becomes weaker and more compli-
cated [see Fig. 5(d) and (i), and Fig. 5(e) and (j)].
4. Conclusion
In conclusion, we have investigated the propagation of Airy-
related beams generated from at-topped Gaussian beams through
Fig. 2. The propagation of the Airy-related beams of different order in the chiral slab with 0:16=k
0
; (a) and (e) the LCP beam; (b) and (f) the RCP beam; (c) and (g) the
interference term I
int
; (d) and (h) the total intensity; (a)(d) for N 1, and (e)(h) for N 10; respectively.
Z. Liu, D. Zhao / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 52 (2014) 1318 15
Fig. 3. The evolution of the Airy-related beams of different orders propagating through the chiral medium with 0:28=k
0
; (a)(d) N 1, and (e)(h) N 10:
Fig. 4. The normalized intensity distribution of Airy-related beams of different orders propagating through the chiral media when z 200 mm with (a)(e) 0:16=k
0
and (f)(j) 0:28=k
0
:
Z. Liu, D. Zhao / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 52 (2014) 1318 16
a chiral slab by using the Matrix Optics. And we have discussed
several inuence factors, such as the optical beam order N and the
chiral parameter of the chiral slab, on the beam propagation
properties both in near- and far-zones in detail. It is shown that the
Airy tails of high order beams decay more quickly than those of low
order beams in the chiral slab; the constructive interference effect
between the LCP and RCP beams becomes more signicant as the
chiral parameter increases; the LCP and RCP beams are not
separated in the near-zone, while the two beams are obviously
separated in the far-zone, and accordingly the interference peaks
decrease as the propagation distance increases.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (11274273 and 11074219), the Jiangxi Provin-
cial Natural Science Foundation of China (20132BAB212007), the
East China Jiaotong University Startup Outlay for Doctor Scientic
Research (09132007), and the East China Jiaotong University
Foundation (11JC02 and 10JC01).
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