Florida scientists simulate curvy light

William Atkins
Friday, 28 December 2007 21:46

Science - Energy

In reality, light did not curve along the path created by the research team. The path is created by the interference of the light beam with about one-half million pixels within the SLM. In other words, the researchers engineered the phase of the light beam in such a way as to create an interference pattern that replicates a curved path of light.

The work of the Christodoulides-Dugariu team has been written up in the November 20, 2007 issue within Physical Review Letters. The article is entitled “Observation of Accelerating Airy Beams.”
In the abstract of their paper, Christodoulides and Dogariu, along with associates G.A. Siviloglou and J. Broky, state, “We report the first observation of Airy optical beams. This intriguing class of wave packets, initially predicted by Berry and Balazs in 1979, has been realized in both one- and two-dimensional configurations. As demonstrated in our experiments, these Airy beams can exhibit unusual features such as the ability to remain diffraction-free over long distances while they tend to freely accelerate during propagation.” [PRL: “Observation of Accelerating Airy Beams.”]

Christodoulides stated within the December 22 and 29, 2007 issue of Science News (“Airy theory, but true”): “Maybe we can find ways of sending energy around obstacles … or push particles along curved trajectories.”

Thus, the researchers are hopeful that this simulated curving of light beams, or what are called Airy beams, may provide new scientific and practical insights into optical engineering.