Conical refraction and formation of multiring focal image with Laguerre-Gauss light beams.

For a light beam focused through a biaxial crystal along one of its optical axes, the effect of internal conical refraction in the crystal leads to the formation in the focal image plane of two bright rings separated by a dark ring. It is shown that, with circularly polarized Laguerre-Gauss LG(0)(ℓ) beams entering the crystal, this classical double-ring pattern is transformed into a multiring one consisting of ℓ+2 bright rings.