Broadband spin Hall effect of light in single nanoapertures.

With properties not previously available, optical metamaterials and metasurfaces have shown their great potential in the precise control of light waves at the nanoscale. However, the use of current metamaterials and metasurfaces is limited by the collective response of the meta-atoms/molecules, which means that a single element cannot provide the functionalities required by most applications. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that a single achiral nanoaperture can be utilized as a meta-macromolecule to achieve giant angular spin Hall effect of light. By controlling the spin-related momenta, we show that these nanoapertures can enable full control of the phase gradient at a deep-subwavelength level, thus forming unique building blocks for optical metasurfaces. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, a miniaturized Bessel-like beam generator and flat lens are designed and experimentally characterized. The results presented here may open a door for the development of meta-macromolecule-based metasurfaces for integrated optical systems and nanophotonics.

Creation of Sub-diffraction Longitudinally Polarized Spot by Focusing Radially Polarized Light with Binary Phase Lens.

The generation of a sub-diffraction longitudinally polarized spot is of great interest in various applications, such as optical tweezers, super-resolution microscopy, high-resolution Raman spectroscopy, and high-density optical data storage. Many theoretical investigations have been conducted into the tight focusing of a longitudinally polarized spot with high-numerical-aperture aplanatic lenses in combination with optical filters. Optical super-oscillation provides a new approach to focusing light beyond the diffraction limit. Here, we propose a planar binary phase lens and experimentally demonstrate the generation of a longitudinally polarized sub-diffraction focal spot by focusing radially polarized light. The lens has a numerical aperture of 0.93 and a long focal length of 200λ for wavelength λ = 632.8 nm, and the generated focal spot has a full-width-at-half-maximum of about 0.456λ, which is smaller than the diffraction limit, 0.54λ. A 5λ-long longitudinally polarized optical needle with sub-diffraction size is also observed near the designed focal point.

Generation of a sub-diffraction hollow ring by shaping an azimuthally polarized wave.

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.