Abstract
Relevant properties of Bessel beams in terms of nondiffracting propagation over ideally infinite range, with unchanged transverse profile and self-healing capability, are revised and discussed in the present chapter. Promising applications in the framework of new-generation communication systems are also outlined.
Keywords
- focused systems
- nondiffracting fields
- Bessel beam
- propagation
- slow waves
1. Introduction
Diffractive phenomena are strictly related to the wave nature of light: any field of wavelength
As deeply addressed in Section 2, Bessel beams are solutions to the Helmholtz equation in circular cylindrical coordinates, revealing many appealing features, namely
they theoretically guarantee an indefinite extension along the axial (propagation) direction;
they own the property of reconstruction after obstruction (“self-healing”), that is, if an obstacle occurs at the center of the beam, it will not block the rays, as they will interfere each other to reform the beam.
The ideal Bessel beam, having an infinite number of rings and covering an infinite distance, cannot physically exist, as it requires an infinite energy. Thus, physically meaningful beams are the apertured Bessel beams, possessing nearly diffracting properties within a limited axial distance. In this chapter, an overview of the basic properties of localized Bessel beams is provided, and some specific applications in the framework of emerging communication technologies are discussed. In particular, mathematical details on Bessel beams solutions are presented in Section 2, where the possibility to express the Bessel beam in terms of plane waves traveling on a cone with the same phase velocity is demonstrated. In Section 3.1, a practical realization example of microwave Bessel beam source to be applied for focused high-penetration applications is described, while in Sections 3.2 and 3.3, a discussion about potential applications in the framework of high-performance communication systems is outlined.
2. Localized Bessel beam solutions
Let us consider the scalar wave equation:
where
In any system of cylindrical coordinates (
where
is the transverse distance, and the radial function shape
When replacing the solution (2) into Eq. (1), the following equation is obtained:
where
Eq. (4) satisfied by the radial function
where
Thus, a solution of the wave equation (1) which maintains unchanged its radial shape can be written as
where
Recalling that
we have
Replacing expression (9) into the solution (6), we can write
In particular, for
Now, let us recall the Bessel function can be written as
When imposing
Eq. (11) can be written as
Then, if replacing expression (13) into solution (10), we have
The latter equation demonstrates that a nondiffracting Bessel beam can be expressed in terms of plane waves, as it describes a cone of plane waves having the same inclination angle
Let us consider the solution expressed by Eq. (10). For
As a matter of fact, the first null of the Bessel beam is equal to
Thus, taking into account that
As yet outlined in Section 1, the solution (10) describes an ideal Bessel beam, with extremely narrow intensity profile and infinite propagation distance. However, from simple energy argumentations, it can be demonstrated that such a Bessel beam is not physically realizable. The intensity field distribution given by Eq. (10) is described by the Bessel function
To derive the expression of the finite range
From Eq. (9), we have
Then, applying geometrical optics considerations, the following expression can be derived:
From Eq. (18) we can observe that, in order to produce a Bessel beam propagating on a long distance, either the radius
Let us consider the power
When imposing relation (15), we have
If comparing the above result with that relative to a Gaussian beam produced by the same aperture, an increased power delivery can be demonstrated.
3. Potential applications of localized Bessel beams
The unique properties of Bessel beams in terms of self-reconstruction and profile stability over large distances make them ideal candidates in a variety of applications, requiring highly localized energy and/or diffraction mitigation. In this section, a few specific application examples to be adopted in the framework of new-generation telecommunication systems are reviewed. They include a microwave realization of Bessel beam launcher and the potential use of Bessel beams as an efficient transmission medium to increase data rate and overcome diffraction limits in long distance communications.
3.1. Waveguide-based microwave Bessel beam launcher
Most of existing works in the literature are mainly focused on the generation of Bessel beams in the optical regime, through the adoption of annular slit, axicons, or lasing devices [5–9], while much less results exist in the microwave regime.
In a recent ESA (European Space Agency) research study on “Microwave Drilling” [10], a practical X-band realization of Bessel beam launcher to be adopted as a focused near-field source has been performed. Following the theoretical approach outlined in [11], the microwave Bessel beam is generated as the aperture field at the open end of a metallic circular waveguide. In particular, a transverse electric (TE) representation is adopted for the zero-order Bessel beam, with an expansion in terms of a finite number of propagating
The schematic configuration of X-band Bessel beam launcher developed in [10] is illustrated in Figure 5. A single-loop antenna is considered for the proper field generation inside the circular waveguide of radius
A Bessel beam with
which gives
The realized prototype, for a design frequency
In order to verify the nondiffracting feature along the propagation range, near-field measurements are performed on various planes placed at different distances from the Bessel beam launcher. All near-field acquisitions are realized on a square grid of 43 × 43 points, with uniform spacing equal to
3.2. Bessel beam as information carrier in telecommunication systems
The impressive property of unchanged shape over extended propagation distances makes Bessel beams appealing also in communication systems as information carriers. High-order Bessel beams expressed by
have azimuthal index
whose harmonics are independent of spatial scale and orthonormal over the azimuthal plane.
Researchers are currently looking at this interesting application of Bessel beam as a mean of transferring data, with a special focus on the development of efficient techniques to perform modal decomposition, but avoiding false detections due to cross-talk effects between neighboring modes.
3.3. Bessel beam application in free-space optical communication
Free-space optical (FSO) communication is a robust method to transmit information with high capacity, high speed, and security [17]. Gaussian beams are typically adopted to realize the propagation; however, they suffer from limitations caused by diffraction, leading to the spread of the beam’s energy, thus lowering the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver and increasing the bit error rate (BER).
In order to investigate the above effects, nondiffracting Bessel beams can be successfully adopted as alternative to Gaussian beams. An efficient FSO communication system should have a transmission beam as small as possible, with high peak intensity and high power. As deeply discussed in [18], these criteria are fully satisfied by Bessel beams. First of all, thanks to relation (15), the aperture radius required for a Bessel beam to transmit the half power is smaller than that required by a Gaussian beam, with a reduction of about 25% [18]. Furthermore, when comparing Bessel and Gaussian beams generated with the same aperture, the peak intensity of Bessel beam results to be about 1.2 times greater than that of the Gaussian beam.
As a validation example, the intensity cross-sections for long range propagation at a distance of 22 km through atmosphere are simulated in Figure 8 for Bessel beams (left hand) and Gaussian beams (right hand) and three different aperture radii. The presented results are taken from [18], vertical axis giving the radial distance in [m] and horizontal axis representing the propagation distance in [km]. The outperformances of Bessel beams are clearly visible.
The actual challenge to really achieve FSO communication systems with improved power delivery features for long propagation distances still remains the realizations of launchers less complex than standard axicons but able to produce Bessel beams efficiently.
4. Conclusions
The basic features of nondiffracting Bessel beams have been reviewed in the present chapter, and mathematical discussions have been outlined to derive the relevant properties, such as the spot size, the maximum nondiffracting propagation range, and the delivered power. Assuming a waveguide-based structure as a beam launcher, it has been shown that three degrees of freedom exist to maximize the propagation distance of a Bessel beam without spreading, namely the radius of the aperture from which the beam is generated, the radial wavenumber (in turn depending on the launcher geometry and the dielectric medium properties), and the operating frequency (higher propagation ranges can be achieved when increasing frequency). Finally, potential applications of Bessel beam as an efficient information carrier for long range communication systems have been outlined.
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