🔗 Bessel Beam

🔗 Physics

A Bessel beam is a wave whose amplitude is described by a Bessel function of the first kind. Electromagnetic, acoustic, gravitational, and matter waves can all be in the form of Bessel beams. A true Bessel beam is non-diffractive. This means that as it propagates, it does not diffract and spread out; this is in contrast to the usual behavior of light (or sound), which spreads out after being focused down to a small spot. Bessel beams are also self-healing, meaning that the beam can be partially obstructed at one point, but will re-form at a point further down the beam axis.

As with a plane wave, a true Bessel beam cannot be created, as it is unbounded and would require an infinite amount of energy. Reasonably good approximations can be made, however, and these are important in many optical applications because they exhibit little or no diffraction over a limited distance. Approximations to Bessel beams are made in practice either by focusing a Gaussian beam with an axicon lens to generate a Bessel–Gauss beam, by using axisymmetric diffraction gratings, or by placing a narrow annular aperture in the far field. High order Bessel beams can be generated by spiral diffraction gratings.