Influence of the incident wave-front on intensity distribution nondiffracting beam used in large-scale measurement

Nondiffracting beam is suitable for large-scale straightness measurement because it is much less influenced by atmospheric turbulence than other beams. Based on the energy conservation theory, a binary optical element (BOE) that is used to transform an incident plane wave or divergent spherical wave into a nondiffracting beam was fabricated. We compared intensity distribution of the nondiffracting beam at different propagation distances between a plane wave incidence and a divergent spherical wave incidence based on the scalar diffraction theory and experiment results, and found that by using the same BOE, the propagation range of nondiffracting beam generated by a divergent spherical wave is longer than that generated by a plane wave.