Generation of wavelength-independent subwavelength Bessel beams using metasurfaces

Wei Ting Chen, Mohammadreza Khorasaninejad, Alexander Y. Zhu, Jaewon Oh, Robert C. Devlin, Aun Zaidi, Federico Capasso
2016 Light: Science & Applications  
Bessel beams are of great interest due to their unique non-diffractive properties. Using a conical prism or an objective paired with an annular aperture are two typical approaches for generating zeroth-order Bessel beams. However, the former approach has a limited numerical aperture (NA), and the latter suffers from low efficiency, as most of the incident light is blocked by the aperture. Furthermore, an additional phase-modulating element is needed to generate higher-order Bessel beams, which
more » ... n turn adds complexity and bulkiness to the system. We overcome these problems using dielectric metasurfaces to realize meta-axicons with additional functionalities not achievable with conventional means. We demonstrate meta-axicons with high NA up to 0.9 capable of generating Bessel beams with full width at half maximum about as small as ~λ/3 (λ=405 nm). Importantly, these Bessel beams have transverse intensity profiles independent of wavelength across the visible spectrum. These meta-axicons can enable advanced research and applications related to Bessel beams, such as laser fabrication, imaging and optical manipulation.
doi:10.1038/lsa.2016.259 pmid:30167252 pmcid:PMC6062187 fatcat:vmf2zln4wzfrjki46roccm3vxu