Arbitrary shaping of on-axis amplitude of femtosecond Bessel beams with a single phase-only spatial light modulator

Arbitrary shaping of the on-axis intensity of Bessel beams requires spatial modulation of both amplitude and phase. We develop a non-iterative direct space beam shaping method to generate Bessel beams with high energy throughput from direct space with a single phase-only spatial light modulator. For this purpose, we generalize the approach of Bolduc et al. to non-uniform input beams. We point out the physical limitations imposed on the on-axis intensity profile for unidirectional beams. Analytical, numerical and experimental results are provided. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America