Structuring light under different polarization states within micrometer domains: exact analysis from the Maxwell equations

Abstract

We show the possibility of arbitrary longitudinal spatial modeling of non-diffracting light beams over micrometric regions. The resulting beams, which are highly non-paraxial, possess subwavelength spots and can acquire multiple intensity peaks at predefined locations over regions that are few times larger than the wavelength. The formulation we present here provides exact solutions to the Maxwell's equations where the linear, radial, and azimuthal beam polarizations are all considered. Modeling the longitudinal intensity pattern at small scale can address many challenges in three-dimensional optical trapping and micromanipulation.