Space-Fractional Bessel Beams with Self-Healing and Diffraction-Free Propagation Characteristics

In the recent years, fractional-dimensional approach has gained the attention of researchers due to its applications in modeling complex structures. In this paper, we introduce a unique non-diffracting space-fractional Bessel beam using this approach. It encompasses the limiting cases of both the ordinary integer Bessel beam and the fractional Bessel beam. Contrary to the ordinary Bessel beam, the space-fractional Bessel beam can have an arbitrary noninteger dimension that is less than or equal to three. This beam preserves the non-diffractive nature of Bessel beam and other structured light beams, and is also self-healing in nature. The propagation features of this new class of Bessel beams are discussed in comparison with ordinary Bessel beams. Beams of these types have evident advantages in the near-field applications such as optical trapping and manipulation.