Toroidal polarization vortices in tightly focused beams with singularity

Abstract

In this paper, we numerically investigated tight focusing of cylindrical vector beams of the sec-ond order using Richards-Wolf formulae. It was shown that intensity rings where the Poynting vector was equal to zero appeared not only in the focal plane but also in nearby planes. For example, a lens with numerical aperture NA=0.95 was shown to generate periodical toroidal vortices with a 0.8-mkm period along the z-axis at a distance of about 0.45 mkm from the axis. The vortices were generated pairwise, with the closest-to-focus vortex having clockwise helicity and the subsequent being anti-clockwise. The vortices were also characterized by saddle points. When focusing an optical beam passed through a narrow annular aperture, no toroidal vortices were observed.

Keywords

• tight focusing
• richards-wolf formulae
• energy backflow
• toroidal vortices