Characteristics of an elliptical Airy beam with a circular concentric vortex and its realization

Abstract

We theoretically and experimentally study the propagation characteristics of elliptical Airy vortex beams (EAVBs) with a circular concentric vortex. It is found that EAVBs inherit the abruptly autofocusing properties of the circular Airy beams (CABs), but EAVBs will have a better autofocusing performance than circular Airy vortex beams (CAVBs) under certain conditions. It is also found that the initial <i>m</i>-order concentric vortex of EAVBs splits into |<i>m</i>| first-order vortices at the autofocusing plane, and the focusing pattern splits into |<i>m</i>|+1 bright spots with the pattern's tilting direction related to the sign of <i>m</i> [<i>m</i> is the topological charge (TC) of the vortex]. These characteristics of EAVBs may have potential applications in TC detection, optical micromanipulation, communications, and other fields.