Multilevel phase Fresnel zone plate lens as a near-field optical element

We propose and develop a new solid immersion lens (SIL), which is called the multilevel phase Fresnel zone plate lens (FZPL) for the near-field (evanescent wave) microscopy. The simple analysis is presented by using the scalar diffraction theory. The outstanding advantages of this FZPL are that it both focuses incident waves and produces evanescent waves. A FZPL can effectively concentrate the high angle rays important for the high resolution in comparison with the conventional SILs. The optical system equipped with the FZPL is not only simple in the assembly but also effective in making an optical head unit.     

Focusing and phase compensation of paraxial beams by a left-handed material slab

On the basis of angular spectrum representation, a formalism describing paraxial beams propagating through an isotropic left-handed material (LHM) slab is presented. The treatment allows us to introduce the ideas of beam focusing and phase compensation by LHM slab. Because of the negative refractive index of LHM slab, the inverse Gouy phase shift and the negative Rayleigh length of paraxial Gaussian beam are proposed. It is shown that the phase difference caused by the Gouy phase shift in right-handed material (RHM) can be compensated by that caused by the inverse Gouy phase shift in LHM. If certain matching conditions are satisfied, the intensity and phase distributions at object plane can be completely reconstructed at the image plane.     

Design of Super-resolution Filters with a Gaussian Beam in Optical Data Storage Systems

Super-resolution filters based on a Gaussian beam are proposed to reduce the focusing spot in optical data storage systems. Both of amplitude filters and pure-phase filters are designed respectively to gain the desired intensity distributions. Their performances are analysed and compared with those based on plane wave in detail. The energy utilizations are presented. The simulation results show that our designed super-resolution filters are favourable for use in optical data storage systems in terms of performance and energy utilization.     

A Zone Plate as a Tunable Terahertz Filter

A broadband tunable terahertz filter based on a zone plate is demonstrated in our terahertz time domain spec- trometer. The central bandpass frequency covers the whole spectral range of the terahertz wave emitted from a ZnTe emitter, from 0.5 THz to 2.5 THz, and can be tuned continuously by simply moving the zone plate along the terahertz beam path. The peak transmission is about 40% and the bandwidth varies from 0.16 THz to 0.25 THz at different bandpass frequencies when the aperture size is kept constant.     

Wavelength demultiplexers based on multimode interference effect in photonic crystals

We present a compact photonic crystal wavelength demultiplexing device based on multimode interference effect. The finite-difference time-domain method is used to verify and analyze the characteristics of the device. Results show the demultiplexing function of the device can be obtained with greater than 20 dB isolation ratio and about 20 nm bandwidth at both wavelength bands.     

Dual spectral filters with multi-layered grating waveguide structures

Promising configurations for dual spectral filters based upon grating-waveguide structures are presented. In these configurations, the parameters of the multimode waveguide and grating are carefully chosen to achieve dual resonances at two different pre-determined wavelengths. Specifically, the grating-waveguide structure resonates for each pre-selected wavelength with a different waveguide mode. Theoretical and experimental results reveal that the resonance wavelengths can be accurately selected and that the resonance spectral bandwidths can be less than 1 nm with high contrast ratios. Received: 14 December 2000 / Published online: 9 May 2001     

Controlling aspect ratio of focal spots of high numerical aperture objective lens in multi-photon absorption process

Three types of objective lens (OL), i.e., circular, annular and one-dark-ring, are presented to control the ratio, called aspect ratio (AR), of the longitudinal size and the transverse size of focal spots of micro-focus-region of high numerical aperture (NA) OL. The AR can be varied from 7.1 to 2.7 in the case of using a circular OL with NA changes from 0.7 to 1.4. By employing an annular OL, the transverse size of the central lobe of micro-focus-region decreases but its longitudinal size increases, so that the AR increases several times with respect to the case of using a circular OL. However, using a one-dark-ring OL, one can reduce either both transverse and longitudinal sizes or only the longitudinal size of focal spot, so that the AR obtained with a one-dark-ring OL is about 70% of that obtained with a circular OL. Such lenses can be useful for many applications such as sub-microfabrication and three-dimensional data storage using multi-photon absorption process.     

Design and application of three-zone annular filters

We design three-zone annular filters to be applied to optical storage system. The designed filters extend the depth of focus and realize transverse superresolution simultaneously, which will improve the performance of optical storage system greatly. And we propose two feasible schemes to improve imaging resolution of three-dimensional imaging system. One scheme depends on a complex filter formed by cascading of a three-zone phase filter and a three-zone amplitude filter. The complex filter converge the optimized transverse superresolution and the optimized axial superresolution of two different filters onto a single filter. It can improve the three-dimensional imaging performances greatly. Another scheme depends on a single three-zone complex filter. We propose a three-zone complex filter with phase shift 0.8π, which presents bigger design margin, better imaging quality and stronger three-dimensional superresolution capability.     

Random thickness errors-effect on reflectance of multilayer

In this paper the effect of thickness errors on the reflectance of multilayer is investigated. Using the matrix method, we deduced an expression for describing the dependence of reflectance on the film thickness errors. It is found that the degree of the thickness error-effect is affected by the ratio of low refractive index with high refractive index and the number of layer of multilayer. The computer simulations show that the degree of this effect is very small when the ratio is small and the number of layer is large. The thickness error hardly influences the reflectance of short-wave multilayer.     

Bandwidth tuning of hybrid liquid-crystal Šolc filters based on an optical cancelling technique

We demonstrate that in addition to their role in tuning the wavelength of an N-stage hybrid liquid-crystal Šolc filter, liquid-crystal cells can also be used to vary the transmission bandwidth of such filter around any of the tuned wavelength. This bandwidth tuning is based on the variation of the number of stages by what we call here an “optical cancelling technique”. This is achieved by varying the birefringence of the liquid-crystal cells whose optical path difference switches between two particular values. We show that for a 10-stage filter and at λ_i = 1.532 μm, the calculated 3-dB bandwidth varies from 2.6 to 11.8 nm when the number of “optically-cancelled” hybrid plates increases from 0 to 8. During the tuning process, the contrast ratio remains equal to that of the equivalent classical Šolc filter.     

Variable resolution with pupil masks

There are many applications in which pupil-plane masks are useful for point-spread-function (PSF) apodization or superresolution. A limitation of this technique is that once a mask is fabricated, the corresponding PSF characteristics are fixed. To overcome this drawback we introduce a technique for easily varying the performance of pupil-plane masks. This technique is based on the modification of the transmittance of each of the mask zones and, thus, can be implemented using a spatial light modulator or linear polarizers, e.g., we apply the technique to binary phase-only masks and we check that the figures of merit that characterize the PSF can be easily controlled. We study different configurations that allow us to modify resolution or peak intensity in a continuous way and we derive analytical expressions for these figures of merit.     

Focal Shift of Paraxial Gaussian Beams in a Left-Handed Material Slab Lens

Focal shift is inevitable in conventional lens systems due to the Fresnel number and angular aperture. In this Letter, we demonstrate that there is no focal shift when a paraxial Gaussian beam passes through a left-handed material slab lens without absorption or gain. However, the effect is exhibited in the presence of absorption or gain, and becomes larger as the absorption or gain increases. When the absorption is equal to the gain, the phenomenon of the focal shift caused by the gain is more obvious. In addition, the field distribution is not affected by the absorption or gain and always remains Gaussian both in internal and external focus planes.     

Transmission intensity disturbance in a rotating polarizer

Random disturbance was observed in transmission intensity in various rotating prism polarizers when they were used in optical systems. As a result, the transmitted intensity exhibited cyclic significant deviation from the Malus cosine-squared law with rotation of prisms. The disturbance spoils the light quality transmitted through the polarizer thus dramatically depresses the accuracies of measurements when the prim polarizers were used in light path. A rigorous model is presented based on the solid basis of multi-beams interference, and theoretical results show good agreement with measured values and also indicate effective method for reducing the disturbance.     

Comparison of polarization-mode dispersion tolerances in polarization-multiplexing systems with different modulation formats

The polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) tolerance of 10 Gb/s polarization-multiplexing (PM) system is investigated. Using the importance sampling (IS) method, the outage probabilities of the PM systems with three modulation formats, including on-off keying (OOK), differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) and differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK), are quantified. When the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise is assumed to be dominant, we evaluate the optical power penalties caused by the PMD effect at bit error rate (BER) of 10⁻¹². The performance of compensated PM systems with variable optical delay line is also described. The simulation results indicate that the OOK signal with higher duty cycle (DC) performs better in the PM systems with PMD compensation. It is found that the higher-order PMD impairs seriously the performance of the PM system, and phase-keying formats are more sensitive to the PMD than the OOK.     

Method for rapid measuring retardation of a quarter-wave plate based on simultaneous phase shifting technique

A method for rapid measuring retardation of a quarter-wave plate based on simultaneous phase shifting technique is presented. The simultaneous phase shifting function is realized by an orthogonal grating, a diaphragm, an analyzer array, and a 4-quadrant detector. The intensities of the light beams from the four analyzers with different azimuths are measured simultaneously. The retardation of the quarter-wave plate is obtained through the four light intensity values. In this method, the major axis position of the quarter-wave plate need not be determined in advance. In addition, the measured result is free of the intensity fluctuation of light source. The feasibility of the method is verified by the experiments.     

Optimal phase steps of multi-level spiral phase plates

We analyze vortex properties of the optical beams generated by a multi-level spiral phase plate (MLSPP) and find that this kind of beams consists of vortex components with topological charges of L − kM, where k is zero or any integer, M is the level number and L is the intrinsic topological charge of the MLSPP. We proved that the orbital angular momentum of the beams generated by a MLSPP reaches its maximum only if the phase steps (or the ratio of M to L) satisfies some special conditions.     

Resonant amplification of frustrated evanescent waves by single dielectric coating

Resonant amplification and enhancement of evanescent wave’s frustration across an optical barrier by using single dielectric coating is numerically demonstrated in this article. With further tuning of the thickness values of the second and the third medium (optical barrier) of the proposed stratified four-media configuration, it is shown that it may be possible to achieve unity transmittance at discrete, but closely spaced incident angles within the full range defined by the theoretical cut-off limit. The designed configuration may have other potential applications than lithography and waveguide design is one such example.     

Effects of the frequency chirp on the fields of a chirped Gaussian pulse passing through a hard-edged aperture

Based on the Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral and Fourier transform, propagation expression of a chirped Gaussian pulse passing through a hard-edged aperture is derived. Intensity distributions of the pulse with different frequency chirp in the near-field and far-field are analyzed in detail by numerical calculations. In the near-field, amplitudes of the intensity peaks generated by the modulation of the hard-edged aperture decrease with increasing the frequency chirp, which results in the improving of the beam uniformity. A physical explanation for the smoothing effect brought by increasing the frequency chirp is given. The smoothing effect is achieved not only in the pulse with Gaussian transverse profile but also in the pulse with Hermite-Gaussian transverse profile when the frequency chirp increases.     

Talbot effect in metallic gratings under Gaussian illumination

Metallic gratings can be found in applications such as optical metrology. Due to their fabrication process, the surface presents a certain roughness. In this work, the effect of roughness on Talbot effect has been analyzed when the grating is illuminated with a Gaussian beam. A model based on Fresnel regime is used in order to determine the intensity distribution in the near field. Contrast of the self-images is obtained and it is found that it decreases in terms of the distance between the grating and the observation plane. When the autocorrelation function of roughness presents a Gaussian behaviour, the diffracted beams are still Gaussian although some of their properties change. For example, the width of the diffracted beams increases with respect to the case of the standard chrome on glass gratings. On the other hand, the power of each diffracted beam is independent on the roughness properties of the surface.     

A Multilayered Configuration Broadband Polarization Insensitive Reflector Utilizing a Multi-Subpart Profile Grating Structure

A multilayered configuration broad bandwidth polarization insensitive reflector realized by a multi-subpart profile grating structure is presented. The properties of the reflector are investigated by rigorous coupled-wave analysis. It is shown that over a broadband spectrum of 1.62-1.76μm, the reflector demonstrates high reflectivity （R 〉 99%）, low polarization-dependent loss （PDL〈 0.02 dB） and good angular insensitivity of about 29.6% for both transverse electric and transverse magnetic polarized waves.