Related papers: Focusing of light beyond the diffraction limit
Modern laser sources nowadays deliver ultrashort light pulses reaching few cycles in duration, high energies beyond the Joule level and peak powers exceeding several terawatt (TW). When such pulses propagate through optically-transparent…
It is well-known that electromagnetic radiation propagates along a straight line, but this common sense was broken by the artificial curved light - Airy beam. In this paper, we demonstrate a new type of curved light beam besides Airy beam,…
We present the design and characterization of waveguide grating devices that couple visible-wavelength light at $\lambda=674$ nm from single-mode, high index-contrast dielectric waveguides to free-space beams forming micron-scale…
Thick diffractive optical elements offer a promising way to achieve focusing or imaging at a resolution approaching 1 nm for X-ray wavelengths shorter than about 0.1 nm. Efficient focusing requires that these are fabricated with structures…
Surface plasmon polaritons have attracted varies of interests due to its special properties, especially in the polarization-controlled devices. Typically, the polarization-controlled devices include directional coupling, focusing lens and…
Optical tweezers, formed by tightly focused propagating laser beams, offer the unique capability to trap and control microscopic particles over a broad size range. However, the diffraction inherent to propagating optical fields, limits the…
Conventional optical components shape the wavefront of propagating light by adjusting the optical path length, which requires the use of rather thick lenses, especially for the adjustment of terahertz (THz) radiation due to its long…
Strong interaction between the light field and an atom is often achieved with cavities. Recent experiments have used a different configuration: a propagating light field is strongly focused using a system of lenses, the atom being supposed…
Electronic matter waves traveling through the weak and smoothly varying disorder potential of a semi-conductor show branching behavior instead of a smooth spreading of flow. By transferring this phenomenon to optics, we show how the…
When focusing a light beam at high numerical aperture, the resulting electric field profile in the focal plane depends on the transverse polarisation profile, as interference between different parts of the beam needs to be taken into…
We demonstrate imaging over the visible band using a single planar diffractive lens. This is enabled via multi-level diffractive optics that is designed to focus over a broad wavelength range, which we refer to as an achromatic diffractive…
The recent advent of wave-shaping methods has demonstrated the focusing of light through and inside even the most strongly scattering materials. Typically in wavefront shaping, light is focused in an area with the size of one speckle spot.…
Phase Fresnel lenses have the same imaging properties as zone plates, but with the possibility of concentrating all of the incident power into the primary focus, increasing the maximum theoretical efficiency from 11% to close to 100%. For…
The classical motion at a conical surface is bounded at one (narrower) side of the cone and unbounded at the other. However, it is shown here that a dielectric cone with a small half-angle gamma can perform as a high Q-factor optical…
Gravitational lensing is generally treated in the geometric optics limit; however, when the wavelength of the radiation approaches or exceeds the Schwarzschild radius of the lens, diffraction becomes important. Although the magnification…
Optical metamaterials have the potential to control the flow of light at will which may lead to spectacular applications as the perfect lens or the cloaking device. Both of these optical elements require invariant effective material…
Particles trapped by optical tweezers, behaving as mechanical oscillators in an optomechanical system, have found tremendous applications in various disciplines and are still arousing research interest in frontier and fundamental physics.…
Over the recent years, there have been many reports of achromatic metalenses and diffractive lenses. However, very few (if any) practical applications of such achromatic flat lenses have been demonstrated, which raises questions about the…
In contrast to the case of quasi-monochromatic waves, a focused optical pulse in the few-cycle limit may exhibit two independent curved wavefronts, associated with phase and group retardations, respectively. Focusing optical elements will…
We propose an approach to optical imaging beyond the diffraction limit, based on transformation optics in concentric circular cylinder domains. The resulting systems allow image magnification and minimize reflection losses due to the…