Tight focusing of plane waves from micro-fabricated spherical mirrors

J. Goldwin, E. A. Hinds

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We derive a formula for the light field of a monochromatic plane wave that is truncated and reflected by a spherical mirror. Within the scalar field approximation, our formula is valid even for deep mirrors, where the aperture radius approaches the radius of curvature. We apply this result to micro-fabricated mirrors whose size scales are in the range of tens to hundreds of wavelengths, and show that sub-wavelength focusing (full-width at half-maximum intensity) can be achieved. This opens up the possibility of scalable arrays of tightly focused optical dipole traps without the need for high-performance optical systems.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)17808
JournalOptics Express
Volume16
Issue number22
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Oct 2008

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