Grosjean Thierry, Saleh Said Sadat, Suarez Miguel Angel, Ibrahim Idriss Abdoulkader, Piquerey Vincent, Charraut Daniel, Sandoz Patrick
Institut FEMTO-ST, UMR CNRS 6174, Université de Franche-Comté, 16 Route de Gray, 25030 Besançon Cedex, France.
Appl Opt. 2007 Nov 20;46(33):8061-7. doi: 10.1364/ao.46.008061.
We report a simple method for generating microaxicons at the extremity of commercial optical fibers. The proposed solution, based on a polishing technique, can readily produce any desired microaxicon cone angle and is independent of the nature of the fiber. An optical study of microaxicon performance, in terms of confinement ability and length of the generated Bessel-like beams, is presented as a function of the microaxicon angle. This study, made possible by the experimental acquisition of the 3D light distribution of the Bessel-like beams, reveals the relationship between the Bessel-like beam confinement zone and the beam length. Finally, the effect of diffraction of the Bessel-like beams, induced by the limited lateral extent of the incident fiber mode, is studied and discussed.
