Related papers: Particle manipulation beyond the diffraction limit…
Almost one and a half centuries ago, Ernst Abbe [1] and shortly after Lord Rayleigh [2] showed that when an optical lens is illuminated by a plane wave, a diffraction-limited spot with a radius 0.61*lambda/sin(alpha) is obtained, where…
The concept of the diffraction limit put forth by Ernst Abbe and others has been an important guiding principle limiting our ability to tightly focus classical waves, such as light and sound, in the far field. In the past decade, numerous…
Optical diffraction limit has been a long-term scientific issue since Ernst Abbe first introduced the concept in 1873. It is a constraint on the smallest light spot that can be achieved. Substantial effort has been invested in the past…
To overcome the limit of diffraction while achieving the superresolution technique, solid immersion lenses are the key optical elements for data storage and nanophotonics applications. Recent demonstrations have shown how different…
Super-oscillating beams can be used to create light spots whose size is below the diffraction limit with a side ring of high intensity adjacent to them. Optical traps made of the super-oscillating part of such beams exhibit superior…
The far-field resolution of optical imaging systems is restricted by the Abbe diffraction limit, a direct result of the wave nature of light. One successful technological approach to circumventing this limit is to reduce the effective size…
The last decade has seen numerous efforts to achieve imaging resolution beyond that of the Abbe-Rayleigh diffraction limit. The main direction of research aiming to break this limit seeks to exploit the evanescent components containing fine…
Super-resolution imaging using sub-diffraction field localization by micron sized transparent beads (microspheres) was recently demonstrated [1]. Practical applications in microscopy require control over the positioning of the microspheres.…
The Abbe diffraction limit, tied to the fundamental spatial bandwidth constraint imposed by any physical aperture, remains the primary barrier to achieving ultimate far-field optical resolution and precise light-matter interactions.…
Diffraction limits the behaviour of light in optical systems and sets the smallest achievable line width at half the wavelength. With a novel subwavelength plasmonic lens to reduce the diffraction via an asymmetry and to generate and…
The resolution of optical imaging devices is ultimately limited by the diffraction of light. To circumvent this limit, modern super-resolution microscopy techniques employ active interaction with the object by exploiting its optical…
We show that it is possible to construct spectrally lower bound limited functions which can oscillate locally at an arbitrarily low frequency. Such sub-oscillatory functions are complementary to super-oscillatory functions which are…
Adaptive optics can focus light through opaque media by compensating the random phase delay acquired while crossing a scattering curtain. The technique is commonly exploited in many fields, including astrophysics, microscopy, biomedicine…
Light-induced rotation of absorbing microscopic particles by transfer of angular momentum from light to the material raises the possibility of optically driven micromachines. The phenomenon has been observed using elliptically polarized…
Perfect lensing using negative refractive index materials and radiationless electromagnetic interference both provide extreme subwavelength focusing by "amplifying" evanescent wave components that are usually lost. This paper provides a…
For over a century diffraction theory has been thought to limit the resolution of focusing and imaging in the optical domain. The size of the smallest spot achievable is inversely proportional to the range of spatial wavevectors available.…
Optical microscopy is one of the oldest scientific instruments that is still used in forefront research. Ernst Abbe's nineteenth century formulation of the resolution limit in microscopy let generations of scientists believe that optical…
Optical tweezers is a very well-established technique that has developed into a standard tool for trapping and manipulating micron and submicron particles with great success in the last decades. Although the nature of light enforces…
The optical diffraction limit, formulated by Abbe 140 years ago, imposes a bound on imaging resolution in classical optics. Over the last twenty years, many theoretical schemes have been presented for overcoming the diffraction barrier in…
We realize a scanning probe microscope using single trapped $^{87}$Rb atoms to measure optical fields with subwavelength spatial resolution. Our microscope operates by detecting fluorescence from a single atom driven by near-resonant light…