Frozen waves: experimental generation

Abstract

Frozen waves (FWs) are very interesting particular cases of nondiffracting beams whose envelopes are static and whose longitudinal intensity patterns can be chosen a priori. We present here for the first time (that we know of) the experimental generation of FWs. The experimental realization of these FWs was obtained using a holographic setup for the optical reconstruction of computer generated holograms (CGH), based on a 4-f Fourier filtering system and a nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM), where FW CGHs were first computationally implemented, and later electronically implemented, on the LC-SLM for optical reconstruction. The experimental results are in agreement with the corresponding theoretical analytical solutions and hold excellent prospects for implementation in scientific and technological applications.