Hypergeometric modes

A new family of paraxial laser beams that form an orthogonal basis is discussed. When propagated in uniform space, these beams preserve their structure to scale. The intensity distribution profile for such beams is similar to that for the Bessel modes, representing a set of alternating bright and dark concentric rings. The complex amplitude of these beams is proportional to the degenerate (confluent) hypergeometric function, and therefore we term such beams hypergeometric (HyG) modes. The HyG modes are generated with a liquid-crystal microdisplay.