Direct comparison of anti-diffracting optical pin beams and abruptly autofocusing beams

We propose and demonstrate a generalized class of anti-diffracting optical pin-like beams (OPBs). Such beams exhibit autofocusing dynamics while morphing into a Bessel-like shape during long-distance propagation, where the size of their main lobe can be tuned by an exponent's parameter. In particular, their amplitude envelope can be engineered to preserve the pin-like peak intensity pattern. In both theory and experiment, the OPBs are directly compared with radially symmetric abruptly autofocusing beams (AABs) under the same conditions. Furthermore, enhanced transmission and robustness of the OPBs are observed while traversing a scattering colloidal suspension, as compared to both AABs and conventional Bessel beams. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement