title: Generation of a sub-diffraction hollow ring by shaping an azimuthally polarized wave.
abstract: The generation of a sub-diffraction optical hollow ring is of great interest in various applications, such as optical microscopy, optical tweezers, and nanolithography. Azimuthally polarized light is a good candidate for creating an optical hollow ring structure. Various of methods have been proposed theoretically for generation of sub-wavelength hollow ring by focusing azimuthally polarized light, but without experimental demonstrations, especially for sub-diffraction focusing. Super-oscillation is a promising approach for shaping sub-diffraction optical focusing. In this paper, a planar sub-diffraction diffractive lens is proposed, which has an ultra-long focal length of 600 λ and small numerical aperture of 0.64. A sub-diffraction hollow ring is experimentally created by shaping an azimuthally polarized wave. The full-width-at-half-maximum of the hollow ring is 0.61 λ, which is smaller than the lens diffraction limit 0.78 λ, and the observed largest sidelobe intensity is only 10% of the peak intensity.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Xiang
authors.initials: ZX
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: An-Ping
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Hai
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: Zhong-Quan
authors.initials: ZQ
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.|National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, No. 11 Zhong Guan CunBei Yi Tiao, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, No. 11 Zhong Guan CunBei Yi Tiao, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Lu-Ru
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: Sen-Lin
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: Yu-Yan
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Technology and Systems (Chongqing University), Ministry of Education, and Key Disciplines Lab of Novel Micro-nano Devices and System Technology, Chongqing University, 173 Shazheng Street, Shapingba, Chongqing 400044, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Optical Technologies on Nano-Fabrication and Micro-Engineering, Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Science, P. R. Box 350, Chengdu 610209, China.
authors.forename: Chang-Tao
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Optical Technologies on Nano-Fabrication and Micro-Engineering, Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Science, P. R. Box 350, Chengdu 610209, China.
authors.forename: Xian-Gang
authors.initials: XG
authors.lastname: Luo