Tunable Bessel light modes: engineering the axial propagation

Due to their immunity to diffraction, Bessel light modes potentially offer advantages in various applications. However, they do exhibit significant intensity variations along their axial propagation length which hampers their applicability. In this paper we present a technique to generate Bessel beams with a tunable axial intensity within the accessible range of spatial frequencies. The beam may be engineered to have a constant intensity along its propagation length. Finally, we demonstrate how one can form a Bessel beam with a varying propagation constant along its axial extent which results in a tunable scaling of its lateral cross-section. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America