Creation of Sub-diffraction Longitudinally Polarized Spot by Focusing Radially Polarized Light with Binary Phase Lens

The generation of a sub-diffraction longitudinally polarized spot is of great interest in various applications, such as optical tweezers, super-resolution microscopy, high-resolution Raman spectroscopy, and high-density optical data storage. Many theoretical investigations have been conducted into t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2016-12, Vol.6 (1), p.38859-38859, Article 38859
Main Authors: Yu, An-ping, Chen, Gang, Zhang, Zhi-hai, Wen, Zhong-quan, Dai, Lu-ru, Zhang, Kun, Jiang, Sen-lin, Wu, Zhi-xiang, Li, Yu-yan, Wang, Chang-tao, Luo, Xian-gang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/1107/510
639/624/400/1103
639/624/400/1113
Data storage
Diffraction
Filters
Humanities and Social Sciences
Microscopes
multidisciplinary
Polarized light
Raman spectroscopy
Science
Spectroscopy
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Summary:The generation of a sub-diffraction longitudinally polarized spot is of great interest in various applications, such as optical tweezers, super-resolution microscopy, high-resolution Raman spectroscopy, and high-density optical data storage. Many theoretical investigations have been conducted into the tight focusing of a longitudinally polarized spot with high-numerical-aperture aplanatic lenses in combination with optical filters. Optical super-oscillation provides a new approach to focusing light beyond the diffraction limit. Here, we propose a planar binary phase lens and experimentally demonstrate the generation of a longitudinally polarized sub-diffraction focal spot by focusing radially polarized light. The lens has a numerical aperture of 0.93 and a long focal length of 200λ for wavelength λ = 632.8 nm, and the generated focal spot has a full-width-at-half-maximum of about 0.456λ, which is smaller than the diffraction limit, 0.54λ. A 5λ-long longitudinally polarized optical needle with sub-diffraction size is also observed near the designed focal point.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep38859