Generation of Nondiffracting Vector Beams with Ring-Shaped Plasmonic Metasurfaces

Abstract

Optical nondiffracting vector beams, with their invariant transverse profiles and longitudinal polarization states, have drawn interest in many areas, from optical tweezers to imaging and metrology, but bulky optical components still limit their utilization. The authors design ultrathin, ring-shaped plasmonic metasurfaces to produce nondiffracting Bessel, Mathieu, and Weber vector beams across a broad wavelength range. These metasurfaces present a compact, effective platform for producing complex optical beams, and thus for advancing numerous applications related to conversion of spin and orbital angular momentum, optical manipulation, and optical communication.