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Updated: May 21, 2026

The Generation of Higher-order Laguerre-Gauss Optical Beams for High-precision Interferometry
Published on: August 12, 2013
The taming of absorption: generating a constant intensity beam in a lossy medium
Ilya Golub1, Theodore Mirtchev, Jonathan Nuttall
1School of Advanced Technology, Algonquin College, Ottawa, Ontario K2G 1V8, Canada. golubi@algonquincollege.com
Abstract:
We report the first observation (to our best knowledge) of a constant intensity, quasi-Bessel/nondiffracting beam in an absorbing medium generated by a novel optical element, "exicon," or exponential intensity axicon. Such absorption-compensated and diffraction-resistant beams can find applications in illumination, remote sensing, free-space communications, imaging in biological tissues, nonlinear optics, and other situations where absorption and diffraction hinder light propagation.
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