Optical superoscillatory waves without side lobes along a symmetric cut
Yanwen Hu, Shiwang Wang, Junhui Jia, Shenhe Fu, Hao Yin, Zhen Li, Zhenqiang Chen
Abstract
Optical superoscillation refers to an intriguing phenomenon of a wave packet that can oscillate locally faster than its highest Fourier component, which potentially produces an extremely localized wave in the far field. It provides an alternative way to overcome the diffraction limit, hence improving the resolution of an optical microscopy system. However, the optical superoscillatory waves are inevitably accompanied by strong side lobes, which limits their fields of view and, hence, potential applications. Here, we report both experimentally and theoretically a new superoscillatory wave form, which not only produces significant feature size down to deep subwavelength, but also completely eliminates side lobes in a particular dimension. We demonstrate a new mechanism for achieving such a wave form based on a pair of moonlike sharp-edge apertures. The resultant superoscillatory wave exhibits Bessel-like forms, hence allowing long-distance propagation of subwavelength structures. The result facilitates the study of optical superoscillation and on a fundamental level eliminates the compromise between the superoscillatory feature size and the field of view.