Manipulation of the overall polarization orientation in the focal volume of high numerical objectives

Abstract

We propose an approach for tuning the three-dimensional polarization of a focusing subwavelength spot by a high numerical aperture objective. The incident beams are composed of a radially polarized beam, an azimuthally polarized beam, and a linearly polarized beam with three different weighting factors, respectively. A specially designed adjustable amplitude angular selector is also inserted at the back aperture of the objective for tuning the polarization azimuthally. It is shown that any desired overall polarization orientation can be obtained. We calculated the overall polarization orientation in the focal volume. It is found that the polar angle of the overall polarization orientation can be arbitrarily tuned by the combination of a radially polarized beam and a linearly polarized beam with different weighting factors, and the azimuthal angle can be tuned by rotating the orientation of the linearly polarized beam azimuthally.