Generalizing higher-order Bessel-Gauss beams: analytical description and demonstration

We report on a novel class of higher-order Bessel-Gauss beams in which the well-known Bessel-Gauss beam is the fundamental mode and the azimuthally symmetric Laguerre-Gaussian beams are special cases. We find these higher-order Bessel-Gauss beams by superimposing decentered Hermite-Gaussian beams. We show analytically and experimentally that these higher-order Bessel-Gauss beams resemble higher-order eigenmodes of optical resonators consisting of aspheric mirrors. This work is relevant for the many applications of Bessel-Gauss beams in particular the more recently proposed high-intensity Bessel-Gauss enhancement cavities for strong-field physics applications.