Formation of hypocycloid-shaped beams from dynamic hypocycloid slits

Abstract

We report experimental generation of a family of light beams which follows a hypocycloid shape. These hypocycloid beams were created by uploading hypocycloid-shaped slits into a digital micromirror device (DMD). Creating hypocycloid beams uses the fact that the diffraction of light takes the shape of the evolute of a slit. This method may have applications in the creation of micro-gears by photopolymerization.