Image transmission with a circular Airy array beam.

A circular Airy array beam (CAAB) comprising four symmetric circular Airy beams is proposed and demonstrated for image transmission. It is generated by the Fourier transform of the combined phase, which contains the radial cubic phase, the diffractive axicon phase, and the shift function phase. Two adjustable parameters of the combined phase can control the radius and the initial position of each circular Airy beam at the spatial plane. The image can be modulated into the CAAB through overlapping it at the Fourier plane of this beam and recovered by Fourier transform after diffracting a certain distance. It can be observed clearly that the CAAB after being partly blocked by a movable obstacle guarantees the recovery of the image. In comparison with the existing right-angle Airy array beam, the image transmission by the proposed CAAB is less sensitive to the position of the obstacles on the beam path.