Self-imaging of transparent objects and structures in focusing of spatially phase-modulated laser radiation into a weakly absorbing medium

Self-imaging of transparent objects and structures in focusing of a spatially phase-modulated laser beam into an extended weakly absorbing medium is described. The laser power level that is necessary for effective imaging corresponds to the illuminating beam power when thermal self-defocusing starts evolving in the medium. The effect can be described in terms of the ideology of Zernike's classical phase-contrast method. Edge enhancement in visualised images of transparent objects is experimentally demonstrated. Self-imaging of a microscopic object in the form of transparent letters and long-lived refractive-index fluctuations in liquid glycerol is shown. Due to the adaptivity of the process under consideration, unlike the classical case, self-imaging occurs also in the situations where a beam is displaced (undergoes random walk) as a whole in the Fourier plane, for example, in the presence of thermal flows.