Laguerre-Gaussian Beams with an Increased Dark Area and Autofocusing

Abstract

We introduce and investigate a novel Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam, different from the conventional modal LG beams, which conserve the transverse intensity structure (up to scale) on propagation. The proposed beam does not conserve its structure on free space propagation but possesses some interesting properties. This beam is Fourier-invariant, and it has an increased dark area both in the initial (waist) plane and in the far field. Thus, without changing the topological charge of the beam, varying the radial (lower) index of the associated Laguerre polynomial allows increasing or decreasing the effective diameter of the central dark spot in the intensity pattern. In addition, the beam is autofocusing, i.e., the intensity distribution at the Rayleigh distance from the waist has a shape of the light ring (at any value of the radial index) with the minimal diameter and with the maximal on-ring intensity. Such a beam can be adopted for microparticle manipulation. Increasing the dark area in the focus of a high-aperture spherical lens allows the simultaneous trapping of several absorbing microparticles into this dark area.