Characteristics of an elliptical Airy beam with a circular concentric vortex and its realization

We theoretically and experimentally study the propagation characteristics of elliptical Airy vortex beams (EAVBs) with a circular concentric vortex. It is found that EAVBs inherit the abruptly autofocusing properties of the circular Airy beams (CABs), but EAVBs will have a better autofocusing performance than circular Airy vortex beams (CAVBs) under certain conditions. It is also found that the initial m-order concentric vortex of EAVBs splits into |m| first-order vortices at the autofocusing plane, and the focusing pattern splits into |m|+1 bright spots with the pattern’s tilting direction related to the sign of m [m is the topological charge (TC) of the vortex]. These characteristics of EAVBs may have potential applications in TC detection, optical micromanipulation, communications, and other fields.