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Local polarization of tightly focused unpolarized light

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 228–231 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The polarization of light is important in a great variety of optical phenomena, ranging from transmission, reflection and scattering to polarimetric imaging of scenes and quantum-mechanical selection rules of atomic and molecular transitions. Among some less-well-known phenomena that illustrate the vectorial nature of light are the Pancharatnam1 (or geometric2) phase, singularities in the polarization pattern of clear sky3 and polarization of microwave background radiation4. Here, we examine the partial polarization of focused light. We experimentally demonstrate a rather surprising phenomenon, where the focusing of unpolarized light results in rings of full polarization in the focal plane of the focusing optics. The polarization rings are imaged with a resolution of <100 nm by probing the focal region using a gold nanoparticle.

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Figure 1: Distribution of P3D in the focal plane of a high-NA lens.
Figure 2: Experimental set-up for mapping the degree of polarization.
Figure 3: Polarization by focusing.
Figure 4: Measured P2D for different values of the degree of polarization of the incident beam Pinc2D.
Figure 5: Influence of the axial electric-field component on P2D.

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Acknowledgements

The authors from TKK acknowledge financial support from the Academy of Finland, project numbers 201293 and 118074, and A.T.F. acknowledges the support of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. J. Pekola and O. Hahtela are thanked for loans of equipment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Physics and Mathematics and Center for New Materials, Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), PO Box 3500, FI-02015 TKK, Finland

    Klas Lindfors, Arri Priimagi, Tero Setälä, Andriy Shevchenko & Matti Kaivola

  2. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), School of Information and Communication Technology, Electrum 229, Kista, SE-164 40, Sweden

    Ari T. Friberg

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  1. Klas Lindfors
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Correspondence to Klas Lindfors.

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Lindfors, K., Priimagi, A., Setälä, T. et al. Local polarization of tightly focused unpolarized light. Nature Photon 1, 228–231 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.30

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