Axicon

About: Axicon is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 27530 citations.

Diffraction-free beams.

Abstract: It was recently predicted that nondiffracting beams, with beam spots as small as a few wavelengths, can exist and propagate in free space. We report the first experimental investigation of these beams.

Aberration-free ultrathin flat lenses and axicons at telecom wavelengths based on plasmonic metasurfaces.

Abstract: The concept of optical phase discontinuities is applied to the design and demonstration of aberration-free planar lenses and axicons, comprising a phased array of ultrathin subwavelength-spaced optical antennas. The lenses and axicons consist of V-shaped nanoantennas that introduce a radial distribution of phase discontinuities, thereby generating respectively spherical wavefronts and nondiffracting Bessel beams at telecom wavelengths. Simulations are also presented to show that our aberration-free designs are applicable to high-numerical aperture lenses such as flat microscope objectives.

The Axicon: A New Type of Optical Element

Abstract: A search for a universal-focus lens has led to a new class of optical elements. These are called axicons. There are many different kinds of axicons but probably the most important one is a glass cone. It may be either transmitting or reflecting. Axicons form a continuous straight line of images from small sources.One application is in a telescope. The usual spherical objective is replaced by a cone. This axicon telescope is in focus for targets from a foot or so to infinity without the necessity of moving any parts. It can be used to view simultaneously two or more small sources placed along the line of sight.If a source of light is suitably added to the telescope it becomes an autocollimator. Like ordinary autocollimators it can be used to determine the perpendicularity of a mirror. In addition, it can simultaneously act as a telescope for a point target which may be an illuminated pinhole in the mirror.The axicon autocollimator is also a projector which projects a straight line of images into space.

Generation of high-order Bessel beams by use of an axicon

Abstract: We demonstrate and analyse a method for efficiently generating a high-order Bessel beam of arbitrary order by illuminating an axicon with the appropriate Laguerre–Gaussian light beam. High-order Bessel beams offer distinct advantages over other `hollow' light beams for atom guiding. Our high-order Bessel beam generation technique offers a direct method for coupling cold atoms into this optical atom guide.

Reflected wavefront manipulation based on ultrathin planar acoustic metasurfaces

Abstract: The introduction of metasurfaces has renewed the Snell's law and opened up new degrees of freedom to tailor the optical wavefront at will. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that the generalized Snell's law can be achieved for reflected acoustic waves based on ultrathin planar acoustic metasurfaces. The metasurfaces are constructed with eight units of a solid structure to provide discrete phase shifts covering the full 2π span with steps of π/4 by coiling up the space. By careful selection of the phase profiles in the transverse direction of the metasurfaces, some fascinating wavefront engineering phenomena are demonstrated, such as anomalous reflections, conversion of propagating waves into surface waves, planar aberration-free lens and nondiffracting Bessel beam generated by planar acoustic axicon. Our results could open up a new avenue for acoustic wavefront engineering and manipulations.