Shaping light: the physics behind optical beams

The emergence of the laser was a milestone for technological and scientific advancement. Therefore, there are several articles describing the historical process and its applications, however, knowing that laser beams have a Gaussian spatial profile in the plane transverse to propagation, it is noted that the literature on light structures with other spatial distributions is still little known. In order to contribute to remedy this lack, the present work intends to show the nature of the optical beams respecting the historical landmark of each beam and mathematically describing its characteristics, starting with Gaussian beams passing through Hermite-Gauss, Laguerre-Gauss modes and ending with Bessel bundles.

Keywords
Paraxial optical modes; non-paraxial optical modes; modulated light; beams laser