Propagation characteristics of Bessel beams generated by continuous, incoherent light sources

Abstract

We investigate the propagation behavior of Bessel beams generated by incoherent, continuous light sources. We perform experiments with narrowband and broadband light emitting diodes, and, for comparison, with a laser diode. We observe that the formation of Bessel beams is affected minimally by temporal coherence, while spatial coherence determines the longitudinal evolution of the beam profile. With spatially incoherent beams, the fringe contrast is comparable to the coherent case at the beginning of the Bessel zone, while it completely fades away by propagation, turning into a cylindrical light pipe. Our results show that beam shaping methods can be extended to cases of limited spatial coherence, paving the way for potential new uses and applications of such sources.