Distributions of the optical field in a solid immersion lens recording system are calculated for higher-order radially polarized modes of the incidence. Results show that two higher-order radially polarized modes of R-TEM(11) (* )and R-TEM(21) * are useful to near-field optical recording, but further higher-order modes such as R-TEM(31) (* ), R-TEM(41) (* ), and R-TEM(51) (* ) are not useful due to the strong side-lobe intensity. Compared with R-TEM(01) (* ) beam focusing, the full width at half-maximum of the recording spot is decreased markedly and the focal depth is increased substantially by using R-TEM(11) (* )beam focusing. The effect of the beam width of the R-TEM(11) (* ) mode is also discussed.

Improving the recording ability of a near-field optical storage system by higher-order radially polarized beams

The use of aplanatic solid immersion lenses (ASILs) made of high-refractive-index optical materials provides a route to wide-field high-resolution optical microscopy. Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) can double the spatial bandwidth of a microscope to also achieve high-resolution imaging. We investigate the combination of ASILs and SIM in fluorescence microscopy, which we call structured illumination solid immersion fluorescence microscopy (SISIM), to pursue a microscopic system with very large NA and high lateral resolution. We demonstrate that the combination can produce a wide-field high-resolution microscopic system with bandwidth corresponding to an NA of 3. Future developments of the SISIM system to make it achieve even higher resolution are proposed.

Wide-field high-resolution structured illumination solid immersion fluorescence microscopy

We present a simple model for performing high-density all-optical magnetic recording using a solid immersion lens. The magnetization distribution in the magneto-optic film placed in the vicinity of the solid immersion lens is studied using the vector diffraction theory and the inverse Faraday effect. Simulation results show that although the transverse components of magnetization are nonzero, the axial component dominates. The magnetization direction of the axial component can be reversed by changing the helicity of the incident circularly polarized laser pulses. For a lower-numerical-aperture (NA) system, a larger and circular magnetization zone is obtained and the deviation angle of magnetization direction departing from the optical axis is smaller in the effective magnetization zone, which is useful to vertical magnetic recording. For a higher-NA system, a smaller magnetization zone is generated, but the three-dimensional magnetization distribution has to be considered.

Theoretical study on all-optical magnetic recording using a solid immersion lens

A method to produce magnetic superresolution in all-optical magnetic storage is proposed. Two-zone amplitude-only and phase-only filters are designed to improve the quality of the superresolved magnetization pattern, to increase the magnetic spot intensity, to reduce the magnetic spot size, and to control the sidelobe effect. A procedure for designing a rotationally symmetric pupil-plane mask to control the magnetization intensity distribution near focus is presented. As a practical implementation, we have applied our method to obtain superresolving two-zone phase filters that can improve the all-optical magnetic recording density.

All-optical magnetic superresolution with binary pupil filters

The field distribution of a Weierstrass solid immersion lens (SIL) is presented, which shows that its focal depth is only in nanoscale A novel filter design based on a three-zone binary phase pupil function is introduced for increasing the focal depth of a near-field Weierstrass SIL system and a procedure for designing a rotationally symmetric binary phase filter is presented Numerical results show that an appropriate three-zone phase-only filter not only can evidently increase the focal depth of the SIL system, but also can effectively lower the spreading of the spot size with distance and suppress the side-lobe intensity

Three-zone phase-only filter increasing the focal depth of optical storage systems with a solid immersion lens

The intensity distribution in near-field optical data storage with a solid immersion lens (SIL) and a binary phase-only diffractive super-resolution element (DSE) is expressed in a single definite integral by using angular spectrum theory. The super-resolution of binary two-zone phase DSEs for SIL systems is numerically studied for low and high numerical aperture (NA) systems. The results for the low-NA systems show that optimizing the zone boundary and phase of binary two-zone phase DSEs can decrease the spot size. The Strehl ratio, sidelobe intensity and axial characteristic length are also discussed. In addition, a binary two-zone phase filter can change the position of focus that shifts from the SIL–air interface to air, but the spot size increases. For the high-NA systems, the y- and z-polarized components of the transmitted field increase as the boundary and depth of phase of the DSE increase. When the phase boundary is smaller and the depth of phase depth is close to π, super-resolving effect of DSE is more obvious but the intensity of sidelobes is larger for the high-NA system. In this way, it may be possible to improve both the resolution and focal depth of the SIL with high-NA systems.

Diffractive super-resolution elements applied to near-field optical data storage with solid immersion lens

We propose a method to improve the resolution of near-field optical system with a solid immersion lens by using a multiphase level Fresnel zone plate. The analyses are based on scalar angular spectrum theory. The results show that the multiphase Fresnel zone plate can not only decrease the spot size but also decrease the sidelobe intensity and enhance greatly the diffractive efficiency compared with annular amplitude filter or binary 2-, 3-, 4-zone phase filter.

Chong-wei Zheng

Papers

Diffractive super-resolution elements applied to near-field optical data storage with solid immersion lens

Improving the resolution of a solid immersion lens optical system using a multiphase Fresnel zone plate