Electrically switchable finite energy Airy beams generated by a liquid crystal cell with patterned electrode

A pair of electrically switchable finite energy Airy beams is generated by a liquid crystal (LC) cell, where one electrode is patterned by a photomask with a binary-phase pattern. Applying voltage across the LC cell, an index modulation is produced due to the liquid crystal molecules realignment, and the finite energy Airy beams can be generated or erased corresponding to the phase difference between the regions with and without electrode. The diffraction-free and transverse acceleration dynamics of this binary-phase element based finite energy Airy beams were experimentally verified, exhibiting excellent agreement with the theory.

[1]  Michael V Berry,et al.  Nonspreading wave packets , 1979 .

[2]  Ady Arie,et al.  Nonlinear generation and manipulation of Airy beams , 2009 .

[3]  Peeter Saari.  Laterally accelerating airy pulses. , 2008, Optics express.

[4]  Jörg Baumgartl,et al.  Optically mediated particle clearing using Airy wavepackets , 2008 .

[5]  Demetrios N. Christodoulides,et al.  Observation of accelerating Airy beams. , 2007 .

[6]  Electrically switchable optical vortex generated by a computer-generated hologram recorded in polymer-dispersed liquid crystals. , 2007, Optics express.

[7]  X. W. Sun,et al.  Generating electrically tunable optical vortices by a liquid crystal cell with patterned electrode , 2008 .

[8]  Shin-Tson Wu,et al.  Electrically switchable Fresnel lens using a polymer-separated composite film. , 2005, Optics express.

[9]  Y J Liu,et al.  Airy beams generated by a binary phase element made of polymer-dispersed liquid crystals. , 2009, Optics express.

[10]  Hung-Chang Jau,et al.  Highly efficient and polarization-independent Fresnel lens based on dye-doped liquid crystal. , 2007, Optics express.

[11]  Ko-Ting Cheng,et al.  Electrically switchable and optically rewritable reflective Fresnel zone plate in dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystals. , 2007, Optics express.

[12]  Andrew G. Glen,et al.  APPL , 2001 .

[13]  Robert R. Alfano,et al.  The Poynting vector and angular momentum of Airy beams. , 2008 .

[14]  I. Besieris,et al.  A note on an accelerating finite energy Airy beam. , 2007, Optics letters.

[15]  Miroslav Kolesik,et al.  Curved Plasma Channel Generation Using Ultraintense Airy Beams , 2009, Science.

[16]  Julio C Gutiérrez-Vega,et al.  Airy-Gauss beams and their transformation by paraxial optical systems. , 2007, Optics express.

[17]  Tomoyoshi Ito,et al.  Real-time digital holographic microscopy using the graphic processing unit. , 2008, Optics express.

[18]  A Dogariu,et al.  Ballistic dynamics of Airy beams. , 2008, Optics letters.

[19]  D. Christodoulides,et al.  Accelerating finite energy Airy beams. , 2007, Optics letters.

[20]  Kuo-Ching Lo,et al.  Electrically controllable and polarization-independent Fresnel zone plate in a circularly symmetric hybrid-aligned liquid crystal film with a photoconductive polymer layer , 2007 .

[21]  D. Christodoulides,et al.  Self-healing properties of optical Airy beams. , 2008, Optics express.