Generation of half-Pearcey laser beams by a spatial light modulator

With use of a liquid crystal phase-only spatial light modulator, we generate form-invariant Half-Pearcey laser beams (HP-beams), which were recently proposed by the present authors [Computer Optics, v. 38, no. 2 (2014)]. It is experimentally shown that upon propagation the HP-beams preserve their shape up to a scale and rotate by 180 degrees. These beams have the ability to auto-focus and reconstruct their intensity pattern after partial distortion by an amplitude defect (property of self-healing). The amplitude and phase of the HP-beam were encoded with the modified two-phase algorithm. Ignoring the amplitude and using only the phase leads to greater distortions of the HP-beam comparing with the two-phase encoding algorithm.