Transverse intensity at the tight focus of a second-order cylindrical vector beam

Abstract

In this paper, an effect of a reverse energy flow at the focus of a second-order cylindrical vector beam which passed through amplitude zone plate was investigated with a scanning near-field optical microscope. A comparison of the intensity distribution detected with a pyramidal metallized cantilever with a hole and the characteristics of the light field calculated using a FDTD method and the Richards-Wolf formulas suggests that the cantilever is sensitive to the transverse intensity component rather than the total intensity or the components of the Poynting vector in the backflow region.

Keywords

• backflow region
• vector beam
• scanning near-field optical microscopy
• fdtd method