title: Aberration limits for annular Gaussian beams for optical storage.
abstract: Annularly apodized beams have been suggested for use in optical storage because of their potential to go beyond the conventional spot size and depth-of-focus limits. One concern for such applications is the effects of small aberrations on beams in which the energy is concentrated in a small annular ring. We present calculations and experimental results that show that annular apodization of a Gaussian beam reduces the sensitivity to defocus as well as balanced spherical and coma aberrations. The sensitivity to astigmatism is increased by a small amount.
authors.forename: T C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Strand
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Werlich