Observation of parabolic nondiffracting optical fields

We report the first experimental observation of parabolic non-diffracting beams, the fourth fundamental family of propagation-invariant optical fields of the Helmholtz equation. We generate the even and odd stationary parabolic beam and with them we are able to produce traveling parabolic beams. It is observed that these fields exhibit a number of unitary in - line vortices that do not interact on propagation. The experimental transverse patterns show an inherent parabolic structure in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. Our results exhibit a transverse energy flow of traveling beams never observed before. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.