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Planar super-oscillatory lens for sub-diffraction optical needles at violet wavelengths

Planar super-oscillatory lens for sub-diffraction optical needles at violet wavelengths
Planar super-oscillatory lens for sub-diffraction optical needles at violet wavelengths
Planar optical lenses are fundamental elements of miniaturized photonic devices. However, conventional planar optical lenses are constrained by the diffraction limit in the optical far-field due to the band-limited wavevectors supported by free-space and loss of high-spatial-frequency evanescent components. As inspired by Einstein’s radiation ‘needle stick’, electromagnetic energy can be delivered into an arbitrarily small solid angle. Such sub-diffraction optical needles have been numerically investigated using diffractive optical elements (DOEs) together with specially polarized optical beams, but experimental demonstration is extremely difficult due to the bulky size of DOEs and the required alignment precision. Planar super-oscillatory lenses (SOLs) were proposed to overcome these constraints and demonstrated that sub-diffraction focal spots can actually be formed without any evanescent waves, making far-field, label-free super-resolution imaging possible. Here we extend the super-oscillation concept into the vectorial-field regime to work with circularly polarized light, and experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, a circularly polarized optical needle with sub-diffraction transverse spot size (0.45l) and axial long depth of focus (DOF) of 15l using a planar SOL at a violet wavelength of 405 nm. This sub-diffraction circularly polarized optical needle has potential applications in circular dichroism spectroscopy, super-resolution imaging, high-density optical storage, heat-assisted magnetic recording, nano-manufacturing and nano-metrology.
2045-2322
6333
Yuan, Guanghui
d7af6f06-7da9-41ef-b7f9-cfe09e55fcaa
Rogers, Edward T.F.
b92cc8ab-0d91-4b2e-b5c7-8a2f490a36a2
Roy, Tapashree
44d227a5-e9bd-49c2-8b6f-3ca6774cb1e5
Adamo, Giorgio
73480dbd-5d3e-415a-b569-9606b3dbeecc
Shen, Zexiang
f17e56a3-2976-4d8c-aac0-d7e7422216ed
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6
Yuan, Guanghui
d7af6f06-7da9-41ef-b7f9-cfe09e55fcaa
Rogers, Edward T.F.
b92cc8ab-0d91-4b2e-b5c7-8a2f490a36a2
Roy, Tapashree
44d227a5-e9bd-49c2-8b6f-3ca6774cb1e5
Adamo, Giorgio
73480dbd-5d3e-415a-b569-9606b3dbeecc
Shen, Zexiang
f17e56a3-2976-4d8c-aac0-d7e7422216ed
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6

Yuan, Guanghui, Rogers, Edward T.F., Roy, Tapashree, Adamo, Giorgio, Shen, Zexiang and Zheludev, Nikolay I. (2014) Planar super-oscillatory lens for sub-diffraction optical needles at violet wavelengths. Scientific Reports, 4, 6333. (doi:10.1038/srep06333).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Planar optical lenses are fundamental elements of miniaturized photonic devices. However, conventional planar optical lenses are constrained by the diffraction limit in the optical far-field due to the band-limited wavevectors supported by free-space and loss of high-spatial-frequency evanescent components. As inspired by Einstein’s radiation ‘needle stick’, electromagnetic energy can be delivered into an arbitrarily small solid angle. Such sub-diffraction optical needles have been numerically investigated using diffractive optical elements (DOEs) together with specially polarized optical beams, but experimental demonstration is extremely difficult due to the bulky size of DOEs and the required alignment precision. Planar super-oscillatory lenses (SOLs) were proposed to overcome these constraints and demonstrated that sub-diffraction focal spots can actually be formed without any evanescent waves, making far-field, label-free super-resolution imaging possible. Here we extend the super-oscillation concept into the vectorial-field regime to work with circularly polarized light, and experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, a circularly polarized optical needle with sub-diffraction transverse spot size (0.45l) and axial long depth of focus (DOF) of 15l using a planar SOL at a violet wavelength of 405 nm. This sub-diffraction circularly polarized optical needle has potential applications in circular dichroism spectroscopy, super-resolution imaging, high-density optical storage, heat-assisted magnetic recording, nano-manufacturing and nano-metrology.

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More information

Published date: 11 September 2014
Organisations: Optoelectronics Research Centre

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 372191
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/372191
ISSN: 2045-2322
PURE UUID: 7cf12422-2acc-4228-b9e3-d678f37c6c41
ORCID for Nikolay I. Zheludev: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1013-6636

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 02 Dec 2014 11:47
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:44

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Contributors

Author: Guanghui Yuan
Author: Edward T.F. Rogers
Author: Tapashree Roy
Author: Giorgio Adamo
Author: Zexiang Shen

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