Creating airy beam using a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD)

• Main Author: Siew, Shi Yong.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Optics, optoelectronics, photonics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54113
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Airy beam was first speculated by M. V. Berry and N. L. Balz in 1979 but not created [1]. It was only first demonstrated by Georgios Siviloglou et al. in 2007[2]. The interesting property of Airy beam includes being diffraction-free for a certain distance and travelling in a curved path. The spatial light modulator used was a phase-only modulator as a cubic modulated Gaussian beam has to be produced in order to create Airy beam. A digital micromirror device (DMD) has certain advantages over a liquid crystal on silicon device such as high frame rate and higher damage threshold. Therefore the aim of this project is to use the binary amplitude-only digital micromirror device (DMD) to create a platform for beam shaping. In order to do that, a computer generated hologram was created since a DMD cannot modulate the phase of a Gaussian beam directly. An optical system was then designed using a 0.1 mW laser diode as the light source to reflect off the DMD and using a plano convex lens to perform Fourier transform before capturing the image with a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) camera. It was then shown that the created Airy beam can also display its diffraction-free property and ability to travel in a curved path. A 2D Airy beam was also briefly discussed and created. A possible application using a DMD created Airy beam was discussed. Lastly it was described how a DMD created Airy beam can perform better in optical micromanipulation.