Self-healing of Bessel-like beams with longitudinally dependent cone angles

Abstract

Bessel beams have been extensively studied, but to date have been created over a finite region inside the laboratory. Recently Bessel-like beams with longitudinally dependent cone angles have been introduced allowing for a potentially infinite quasi non-diffracting propagation region. Here we show that such beams can self-heal. Moreover, in contrast to Bessel beams where the self-healing distance is constant, here the self-healing distance is dependent on where the obstruction is placed in the field, with the distance increasing as the Bessel-like beam propagates farther. We outline the theoretical concept for this self-healing and confirm it experimentally.