Abstract

A simple setup for generating evanescent Bessel beams is proposed. When a radially polarized beam is strongly focused onto a dielectric–metal interface, the entire beam is p-polarized with respect to the dielectric–metal interface, enabling excitation of surface plasmons from all directions. The angular selectivity of surface plasmon excitation mimics the function of an axicon, leading to an evanescent nondiffracting Bessel beam. The created evanescent Bessel beam may be used as a virtual probe for near-field optical imaging and sensing applications.

© 2006 Optical Society of America

Realization of an evanescent Bessel beam via surface plasmon interference excited by a radially polarized beam

Weibin Chen and Qiwen Zhan
Opt. Lett. 34(6) 722-724 (2009)

Surface plasmon resonance imaging of cell-substrate contacts with radially polarized beams

K.J. Moh, X.-C. Yuan, J. Bu, S. W. Zhu, and Bruce Z. Gao
Opt. Express 16(25) 20734-20741 (2008)

Generation of an elliptic Bessel beam

Rijuparna Chakraborty and Ajay Ghosh
Opt. Lett. 31(1) 38-40 (2006)

Localized surface plasmon microscope with an illumination system employing a radially polarized zeroth-order Bessel beam

Kouyou Watanabe, Goro Terakado, and Hiroshi Kano
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Focusing property of a double-ring-shaped radially polarized beam

Yuichi Kozawa and Shunichi Sato
Opt. Lett. 31(6) 820-822 (2006)