Twisted Talbot effect: Self-Imaging in Angle and Orbital Angular Momentum

Abstract

The Talbot effect is a self-imaging phenomenon of periodic waves. In the last decades, the understanding of the self-imaging effect has been diversified to different degrees of freedom of different types of waves, highlighting its very general nature. Essentially, the self-imaging effect is seen whenever a wave is periodic in one degree of freedom, and a quadratic phase is applied in the corresponding Fourier dual domain. The generalized Talbot effect, i.e., a joint description of the effect in any domain together with its Fourier dual domain, can be used as a more powerful self-imaging tool capable of arbitrary control of field periodicities in either domain.