Propagation of Bessel beams from tilted thin axicons

Abstract

We present the free-space propagation of Bessel beams generated by thin axicon. Both ray and diffraction optics show that light from a through a thin axicon has a conical wavefront. Furthermore, a tilted axicon can still generate a Bessel beam but its propagation direction deviates from the optical axis. Looking at the Strehl ratio of the generated beams show that thinner axicons are more robust to aberrations generated by tilt.