title: Transverse superresolution technique involving rectified Laguerre-Gaussian LG(p)⁰ beams.
abstract: A promising technique has been proposed recently [Opt. Commun. 284, 1331 (2011), Opt. Commun. 284, 4107 (2011)] for breaking the diffraction limit of light. This technique consists of transforming a symmetrical Laguerre-Gaussian LG(p)⁰ beam into a near-Gaussian beam at the focal plane of a thin converging lens thanks to a binary diffractive optical element (DOE) having a transmittance alternatively equal to -1 or +1, transversely. The effect of the DOE is to convert the alternately out-of-phase rings of the LG(p)⁰ beam into a unified phase front. The benefits of the rectified beam at the lens focal plane are a short Rayleigh range, which is very useful for many laser applications, and a focal volume much smaller than that obtained with a Gaussian beam. In this paper, we demonstrate numerically that the central lobe's radius of the rectified beam at the lens focal plane depends exclusively on the dimensionless radial intensity vanishing factor of the incident beam. Consequently, this value can be easily predicted.
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche sur les Ions, les Matériaux et la Photonique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 6252, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, École Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Caen, Université de Caen, 6 Boulevard Maréchal Juin, F-14050 Caen Cedex, France. Emmanuel.Cagniot@ensicaen.fr
authors.forename: Emmanuel
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cagniot
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fromager
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Godin
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Passilly
authors.forename: Kamel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Aït-Ameur