Transverse superresolution with extended depth of focus using binary phase filters for optical storage system

This paper reports the study of superresolution and extension of depth of focus (DOF) of three-zone binary phase filters (BPFs) under high numerical aperture (NA) focusing. Two three-zone BPFs (BPF1 and BPF2) are specially designed to achieve transverse superresolution and extension of DOF simultaneously for the optical disc system with an objective lens of NA = 0.65. Numerical simulations based on the vectorial diffraction theory indicate that the transverse focal spot size of this system can be as small as that of NA = 0.85 and its DOF is as large as that of NA = 0.6 with acceptable Strehl ratios (> 0.4 for BPF1 and > 0.35 for BPF2) and low side-lobe intensity ratios (< 10%) by using these BPFs. It suggests that the storage capacity of this optical storage system may be improved to the same as that of a system with an objective lens of NA = 0.85. Moreover, the strict requirement of the focusing servo system caused by decreasing wavelength or employing higher NA objective lens can be mitigated. Therefore, these BPFs presented in this paper should be highly interesting for applications of high density optical data storage.