• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.285-291
• /
• 2019

We have studied the behavior of light in the intermediate regime between a single nanoslit and an infinite nanoslit array. We first calculated the optical characteristics of a small number of nanoslits using finite element numerical analysis. The phase variance of the proposed nanoslit model shows a gradual phase shift between a single nanoslit and ideal nanoslit array, which stabilizes before the total array length becomes ${\sim}0.5{\lambda}$. Next, we designed a transmission-enhanced Fresnel zone plate by applying the phase characteristics from the small-number nanoslit model. The virtual-point-source method suggests that the proposed Fresnel zone plate with phase-invariant nanoslits achieves 2.34x higher transmission efficiency than a conventional Fresnel zone plate. Our report describes the intermediate behaviors of a nanoslit array, which could also benefit subwavelength metallic structure research of metasurfaces.

• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.147-152
• /
• 2018

We propose a novel bi-focal metallic Fresnel zone plate (MFZP) with shallow depth-of-field (DOF) characteristics. We design the specific annular slit patterns, exploiting the phase-selection-rule method along with the particle swarm optimization algorithm, which we have recently proposed. We numerically investigate the novel characteristics of the bi-focal MFZP in comparison with those of another bi-focal MFZP having equivalent functionality but designed by the conventional multi-zone method. We verify that whilst both bi-focal MFZPs can produce dual focal spots at $15{\mu}m$ and $25{\mu}m$ away from the MFZP plane, the former exhibits characteristics superior to those of the latter from the viewpoint of axial resolution, including the axial side lobe suppression and axial DOF shallowness. We expect the proposed bi-focal MFZP can readily be fabricated with electron-beam evaporation and focused-ion-beam processes and further be exploited for various applications, such as laser micro-machining, optical trapping, biochemical sensing, confocal sensing, etc.