Self-imaging of three-dimensional images by pulsed wave fields

Abstract

Recently, the classical Talbot effect (self-imaging of optical wave fields) has attracted a renewed interest, as the concept has been generalized to the domain of pulsed wave fields by several authors. In this paper we discuss the self-imaging of three-dimensional images. We construct pulsed wave fields that can be used as self-imaging "pixels" of a three-dimensional image and show that their superpositions reproduce the spatial separated copies of its initial three-dimensional intensity distribution at specific time intervals. The derived wave fields will be shown to be directly related to the fundamental localized wave solutions of the homogeneous scalar wave equation - focus wave modes. Our discussion is illustrated by some spectacular numerical simulations. We also propose a general idea for the optical generation of the derived wave fields. The results will be compared to the work, published so far on the subject.