Experimental research on focusing property of radially polarized beam based on solid immersion lens

Realization of a near-field optical virtual probe based on an evanescent Bessel beam is strongly dependent on a radially polarized beam; this makes it essential to study the focusing property of the beam. In this paper, two experimental setups based on a fiber device and a liquid crystal device, respectively, are built to generate a radially polarized beam. This beam and an annular radially polarized beam are focused by means of a high numerical aperture objective and a solid immersion lens (SIL). Near-field distribution of the focus spot, the evanescent Bessel field, is experimentally measured with a scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM). The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the central peak of the evanescent Bessel field is about 200 nm in the close vicinity of the bottom surface of SIL. This has potential for use as a near-field optical virtual probe. (c) 2006 The Optical Society of Japan.