REU Fellowship - Summer 2012


Biography

Research Journal

Ideas and Resourses

Bessel beam project

We created Bessel-like (non-diffracting) beams by a recently described 4-f spatial filtering method (Kowalczyk, Smith, and Szarmes, AJP 2009), and studied their formation and evolution with a CCD camera and ImageJ software. Observed beams maintain a core diameter under 45 microns over a distance of 47 mm.

Pinhole diffraction mini-project

We studied the diffraction of a laser beam through a 150-micron pinhole, and found that the resulting Airy pattern has an intensity proportional to a Bessel function. Using a high pass spatial filter and various lenses, we came to an understanding of how different factors will alter the image of the pinhole.