Generation of complex structured laser beams based on the coherent superposition of Hermite-Gaussian eigenmodes

Abstract

Structured beams have been extensively studied in the last ten to twenty years. Due to its excellent spatial characteristics, it has been widely used in the fields of optical communication, optical tweezer and particle manipulation. This paper first analyzes and summarizes the formation mechanism of structured beams. Then, based on the eigenmode superposition theory, the numerical simulation was carried out for the first three-orders of Hermitian-Gaussian (HG) eigenmodes. At the same time, some complex structured beams were obtained through experiments. The structured beams obtained from experiments are in good agreement with the numerical simulation results, which further verifies that the eigenmode superposition method is an effective way to realize complex structured beams.