Quantitative analysis of the self-healing property of structured beams using energy flow

Abstract

We present a method of quantitatively determining the strength of a beam's ability to self-heal. The method relies on analyzing the energy flow of a beam after encountering an opaque obstacle. By using the expression for the paraxial transverse Poynting vector, the direction as well as the strength of self-healing can be mapped. To quantify self-healing, we compare epicycloid and hypocycloid structured beams to the well-studied Bessel beam.