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Super-focusing of visible and UV light using a meta surface

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2014 J. Opt. 16 105007
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Journal of Optics
J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007 (9pp)

doi:10.1088/2040-8978/16/10/105007

Super-focusing of visible and UV light using

a meta surface
Mahmoud El Maklizi, Mostafa Hendawy and Mohamed A Swillam
Department of Physics, School of Science and Engineering, The American University in Cairo, New Cairo,
Egypt, 11835
E-mail: m.swillam@aucegypt.edu
Received 26 March 2014, revised 22 July 2014
Accepted for publication 30 July 2014
Published 4 September 2014
Abstract

In this paper, a novel meta surface is proposed for super-focusing. This surface contains two slits
surrounded by nite corrugations for enhanced focusing. This simple surface has the superfocusing ability to focus both near and far eld light in a hot-spot with an FWHM much smaller
than half the wavelength of the incident light. The structure is suitable for one dimensional and
two dimensional focusing applications. The enhanced transmission through the double slit is also
utilized for directional beaming over a wide cone of angles. Moreover, various structures have
been proposed for super-focusing in the visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. The proposed
structure lends itself to various applications, including subwavelength imaging and
nanolithography.
Keywords: super focusing, super lens, plasmonics
(Some gures may appear in colour only in the online journal)
1. Introduction

structure with a single slit surrounded with corrugations on

the sides can obtain an FWHM in the order of (/2) [12].
These structures are simple to fabricate and can be utilized in
various applications, including molecular sensing, spectroscopy, near and far eld microscopes with super-resolution,
and nanolithography. Improving the super-focusing capabilities at the visible and ultraviolet ranges by reducing the
FWHM of the focused spot can result in better performance
and hence is of prime importance.
The physical origin of this phenomenon is attributed to
the resonant excitation of SPPs on the apertures outer surface. These SPPs then diffract from the grating or corrugated
surface and interfere with the light emerging from the slit.
This qualitative interpretation has been theoretically and
experimentally demonstrated in [5]. The same effect has also
been theoretically analyzed and experimentally veried at the
mid infrared region [7]. Various designs based on this conguration have been utilized to achieve subwavelength
focusing [59, 12]. However, further reduction of the focal
spot beyond the diffraction limit of (/2) has not been
reported, to the best of our knowledge. In this paper, we
propose a novel design of a modied slit conguration that
can achieve super-focusing in the visible and UV ranges.

Extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) is an optical phenomenon in which a structure containing subwavelength
apertures in an opaque screen transmits more light than
expected in the transmission through individual apertures
[1, 2]. Recently, enhanced light transmission and beaming
from a single subwavelength aperture surrounded by gratings
has also been reported [35]. This effect allows for the
manipulation and localization of the light in the subwavelength scale.
In general, light passing through a subwavelength slit
should strongly diffract as suggested in [6]. However, if the
slit is surrounded by gratings, it has been proven both theoretically and experimentally that Surface Plasmon Polaritons
(SPPs) are the main cause behind subwavelength focusing
and beaming of the emerging light [59].
The ability to focus the light in a single spot with a high
electric eld intensity and a full width at half maximum
(FWHM) of (/2) or less, namely super-focusing, is extremely
useful for subwavelength imaging and nanolithography [10].
Although super-focusing with FWHM values such as (/9) is
achievable with metamaterials shaped as lenses [11], these
structures are complex and lossy. On the other hand, a
2040-8978/14/105007+09$33.00

2014 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al

In general, the resolution in a conventional optical system

is governed by the diffraction limit. This limit can be
exceeded by focusing the evanescent waves in the near-eld
region [1113]. In light of this pursuit, the concept of the
super-lens was proposed by Pendry [13]. Despite the fact that
such conditions are difcult to satisfy for natural materials, a
super-lens that can provide higher resolution beyond the
diffraction limit has been proved in [11].
Recently, various designs of opaque structures with
periodic gratings and single slits have been studied. These
designs are diverse and mainly directed toward the formation
of a subwavelength focus based on EOT and SPPs [312].
Many of these designs are proposed in order to further reduce
the focal spot size. These basic designs include the bulls eye
design of concentric metal grooves [3] and diamond-milling
concentric grooves [14]. Optimization of the proposed
designs was also considered by varying grating depth to
create depth-tuned grooves [15]. It has also included adding
grooves on both faces of the metal [16], using chirped gratings [17], and using a tapered single slit [18]. Although these
designs used only a single slit, they have shown good
potential for subwavelength focusing structures. Recently, a
double slit proposal that provides intensity-controlled beaming has been made with a nonlinear material [19]. However,
the proposed system was not optimized for super-focusing.
Moreover, the ability to further reduce the spot size using
these designs to reach super-focusing in visible and UV
ranges is very challenging. In addition, in these wavelength
ranges, the design becomes more complicated and difcult to
fabricate due to the nano scale size of the features. It also
becomes challenging to tune, especially with increasing the
number of design parameters and reducing the feature sizes.
In this paper, we propose a novel design of a double slit
conguration that can achieve the lowest reported FWHM for
a nite number of gratings and a lesser number of slits. The
FWHM is successfully reduced for this structure to reach (/
3) and (/4). We also demonstrate focal tracing and beaming
capabilities using this novel structure. A systematic study of
the effect of the major parameters on the FWHM has been
performed and demonstrated. The proposed structure has
been utilized to propose designs that can achieve superfocusing in the visible and deep UV. This will open the door
for a wide range of applications in these regions.
The paper is organized as follows: in section 2 the
structure and its physical origin are discussed. The various
super-focusing applications of the proposed structure in the
visible and UV ranges are demonstrated in section 3. In
section 4, the beaming capabilities of the proposed structure
are illustrated. Finally, the discussion and conclusion are
presented in section 5.

Figure 1. Physical origin of the effects generated, using the proposed

structure.

Figure 2. Double slit model schematic.

nite difference time domain method (FDTD) [20]. The metal

utilized is gold, and material parameters are taken from [21].
Figure 1 shows the structure, along with a demonstration of
the physical origin of the effects that the structure generates.
In our structure, the usage of two slits separated by an equal
distance from the central axis of the structure and anked by
gratings on both sides is proposed. This greatly enhances the
focusing capabilities and reduces the FWHM.
Following the analysis in [7], in order to achieve superfocusing with a system of a single slit and surrounding
gratings, the focal point has to have a positive value, and the
focal range has to be minimized. This suggests using a small
grating period and reducing the number of gratings in order to
reduce the phase retardation between the interfering beams. It
also suggests using non-periodic gratings in order to focus the
light, since it requires non-equal phase distribution to achieve
maximum constructive interference between the eld emerging from the main slit (primary source) and the gratings
(secondary source). Alternatively, we propose adding another
main slit (primary source) that is symmetrically aligned with
the rst slit, assuring zero phase difference between the main
sources in the case of a normal incident plan wave as shown
in gure 1. In this scenario, with the exception of the one in
the middle, none of the gratings will be equidistant from the
two sources. This conguration provides the non-equal phase
required in [7] in order to focus the beam. The FDTD
simulation is utilized to optimize the distance between the two

2. The proposed novel structure

In this section our novel structures are presented and analyzed. The various applications in different wavelength ranges
are also discussed. The modelling and analysis are performed
hereafter using full wave electromagnetic simulation based on
2

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al

phase oscillation, which requires fast change of this phase

near the focal point. In the following section, we demonstrate
that this phase has rapid oscillations for both the UV and
visible case. This shows that the proposed effect can be
understood through the super-oscillations concept. The second characteristic of super-oscillations is the intensity of the
side bands, as mentioned previously. Reducing the energy of
these loops is highly challenging but of prime importance to
obtain a good super- focusing effect. In our optimization
process, we attempted to optimize for the least possible
FWHM while maintaining a good ratio between the main
band and the immediate side bands where the side bands
reached a maximum of 30% of the main band.

slits and the required gratings on each side. The number of the
gratings is minimized in order to avoid phase retardation,
which may cause the focal spot to spread and the power in the
side lobes to increase. A schematic of the nal design is
shown in gure 2. As demonstrated, the focusing effect of the
proposed structure (shown in gure 1) stems from the physical origin of the single slit structure. SPPs travel on the
surface of the metal from the two slits, which then diffract off
the grating. The additional slit plays an important role in
narrowing the focusing width and adjusting the phase difference between the different gratings. It also increases the
SPPs coupled power through the subwavelength hole, which
in turn increases the light transmitted through the meta
surface.
The effect of the additional slit can also be understood
using the classical theory of diffraction for multiple slits [22].
This theory can be projected on the proposed structure here to
state that increasing the number of slits fullls the condition
of the formation of a focus. This is the result of the constructive interference of all the diffracted SPPs, which are
more stringent and, hence, the resultant peak at the focus is
sharper and has a reduced FWHM. Similar behavior is
obtained using an antenna array system to create a highly
directive beam.
Another physical interpretation is based on the phenomenon of super-oscillations [23]. Super-oscillation states
that a mask, which is often a source of super-oscillatory elds,
can form by precise interference, an arbitrarily small spot at a
specic distance from the mask [23]. The tradeoff here comes
in the form of unwanted sidebands which cannot be eliminated and often receive high energy that sometimes can be
even higher than the hot-spot. However, the spot size can be
one-tenth this size or smaller. This phenomenon, of the
energy channeled into the super-oscillatory region increasing
polynomially with the speed of oscillation, is explained by
Ferreira and Kempf in [24]. This simply means that the
polynomial reduction of the size of the optical hot-spot causes
less concentrated energy in the hot-spot. This effect has
received several interpretations from the quantum mechanics
perspective. After Bucklew and Saleh [25] demonstrated that
one-dimensional (1D) binary images can be obtained with
arbitrary resolution by using an ideal, band-limited imaging
system, Aharonov [26] showed that weak quantum mechanical measurements can have values outside the spectrum of
the corresponding operator. Further systematic quantum
mechanical studies have solidied that argument and shown
that indeed a local measurement of a value, such as a wave
number of an optical wave, can be outside the range seen
when a global measurement is taken [27]. In 2006, Berry and
Popescu [28] demonstrated that implication of the argument,
where optical waves could form arbitrarily small spatial
energy localizations that propagate far from the source
without the need for evanescent waves. Super-oscillations
have two key characteristics, both of which are shown in our
results. The rst key characteristic of super-oscillations is the
rapid oscillating phase in the region surrounding the hot-spot
region. The phase of the electric eld at the focal point along
the transverse direction can reveal useful details about the

3. Super-focusing effect
In this section, the super-focusing effect is demonstrated
through an optimization of the various parameters of our
structure. This optimization is done by analyzing the main
parameters that affect the size of the spot through a parametric
study and a creation of a library of most of the likely cases.
The effect of these parameters will be discussed in section 5.
The target function is mainly minimizing the FWHM at the
specied wavelength. Hereafter, various optimized situations
are shown, including examples for the super-focusing effect
in the visible and UV bands. This super-focusing effect can
have a mathematical denition for the produced focal spot as
explained using the transfer matrix formalism in [29], which
makes it possible for the transmittance and reection of the
near eld of the grating as well as the real-space electromagnetic elds to be calculated. Helsth [30] proposed two
mathematical denitions for the focal spot in situations where
the evanescent waves are the relevant states or the effective
components of the system.
One denition is applicable, whether the electric eld can
be evaluated analytically or not. Based on this denition, the
electric eld is dened by assuming the contribution of the
evanescent eld to be elementary sources which allows them
to be summed up. This denition is termed the evanescent
point spread function:
h (x , z ) =

1
2

k a

eik x x+ k x z dk x +

1
2

kb

eik x x k x z dk x . (1)

Unlike far elds, which are well approximated by geometrical optics, near elds require rigorous description and
analysis. However, far elds are a useful starting point to
dene the effect of evanescent waves in the near eld. The
derivation in [31] starts from the angular representation of an
optical far eld:
E ( s x , sy , sz ) =

E k x , k y; 0

lim
kr

k z 2 + k y2

k 2

kx
ky
kz
ikr s x + s y sz
k
k dk dk .
k
x
y

(2)

Due to the exponential decay of the evanescent waves

along the direction of propagation, their contribution is
3

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al

Figure 3. Results for the double slit model in the visible range: (a) the eld intensity distribution showing a focal point at a distance of 0.35
microns from the structure; (b) the intensity (measured in arbitrary units) vs the distance along the y-axis at a distance of 0.35 microns from
the surface, showing a peak at an intensity of approximately 1.8 (au) and an FWHM of 220 nm.

rejected in the far eld, and the limit of the integral becomes:

(k

2
z

+ k y2 < k 2.

case, the expression is given as follows [32]:

kb + ka
sin
x

E 0 1 k b+ k a x 2
E ( x, z0 )
,
e 2

(3)

By using the stationary method and by substituting the

limit in (3) in the integral in (2), we obtain the following
expression:

while in the 3D case, the expression can be written as [32]:

E ( s x , sy , sz )
=

2iksz E k x , k y; 0 eikr
r

E (r , 0) =
.

ireikr
2

(k

2+k 2
y

2
k b2 A J1 ( k b r ) k a f0 J1 ( k a r )

.
2 k b r
2 k a r

(7)

(4)

Further manipulation using equation (4) and substituting

it in equation (2), we reach the following expression:
E ( s x , sy , sz ) =

(6)

E k x , k y

)k

3.1 Super-focusing in the visible region

In this case, we utilized a two-stage design process. In the rst

stage, a single slit structure is utilized. The rst stage involves
the optimization of the shape and period of the gratings in
order to minimize the FWHM and achieve subwavelength
focusing. The process allows the geometrical properties of the
design (i.e., grating depth, width, period, and number) to be
optimized. Then in the second stage, the optimal structure
obtained in the rst stage is modied to a double slit conguration while keeping the optimal parameters for the
gratings obtained in the rst stage. This modied structure is
then utilized as an initial design for the second stage. This
initial structure is then optimized to obtain the super-focusing
effect. The number of the gratings between the slits and the
outer sides is studied through various sweeps. The optimum
design is obtained such that the side lobes are minimized and
do not exceed 30% of the main peak, as shown in gure 3.
Following the proposed design procedure, the nal
optimum design has the following geometrical properties: slit
width (ws) is 200 nm, distance between each slit and the
center of the metal is 500 nm, metal thickness (t) is 200 nm,
grating period (p) is 140 nm, grating depth (d) is 110 nm,
grating width (wg) is 65 nm, number of gratings on the outer

eikr k x x+ k y y k z z

1
dk x dk y.
kz

(5)

This expression shows that the absence of evanescent

elds allows the electric eld E and its far eld form E to
become a Fourier transform pair multiplied by the factor 1/kz.
However, in the presence of the evanescent elds, more rigorous analysis is required, such as that shown in equation (1)
or in the transfer matrix formalism in [29], which uses the
Fourier transforms reached in equation (5) as a starting point
to reach shifted forms to account for the evanescent elds
effects in the near eld.
In [32], Helseth attempted a similar logic to the one used
in [30], using the angular representation of an optical eld,
both in two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D)
forms. In this work, an expression has been reached that
denes the electric eld along the focal line produced from
the focusing of both the evanescent and homogenous waves,
resulting from light passing through an aperture. In the 2D
4

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al

and dt = 0.018 8882 fs, the PML as a boundary condition in

both x and y directions for all the simulations.
The nal step is to compare the effect with the effect
produced by an optimized single slit design, shown in
gure 5. The eld intensity on the emerging side demonstrates that the single slit design exhibits only a subwavelength focusing effect at a wavelength of 627 nm with
FWHM of 340 nm as shown in gure 5.
3.2 Super-focusing at the deep UV region

The deep UV range is an important range mainly for lithography applications. Our proposed structure for this range has
the following geometrical properties: slit width (ws) is 30 nm,
distance between each slit and the center of the metal is
500 nm, metal thickness (t) is 200 nm, and the grating period
(p) is 100 nm. The gratings depth (d) is taken to be 110 nm,
the grating width (wg) is 10 nm, the number of gratings on the
outer sides of the side slits is three, and the number of gratings
between the slits is ve. The distance x is 80 nm. Wide-band
excitation is exploited for a wavelength band from
116 nm196 nm using TM polarization. The simulation
parameters are dx and dy 2.5 nm and dt 0.023 4609 fs. This
proposed model shows a super-focusing effect at two wavelengths, namely at 171 nm with an FWHM of 80 nm and at
117 nm with an FWHM of 54.5, nm as shown in gure 6.
Further optimization allows super-focusing of almost (/3).
Our proposed structure for this focusing power has the following geometrical properties: slit width (ws) is 30 nm, distance between each slit, the center of the metal is 145 nm,
metal thickness (t) is 200 nm, and the grating period (p) is
10 nm. The gratings depth (d) is taken to be 20 nm, the
grating width (wg) is 5 nm, the number of gratings on the
outer sides of the side slits is 12, and the number of gratings
between the slits is 21. The distance x is 27.5 nm. Wide band
excitation is exploited for a wavelength band from
116 nm196 nm using TM polarization. The simulation
parameters are dx and dy 7.7 nm and dt 0.008 659 42 fs. The
structure with these properties allows both a narrow FWHM
in the hot-spot and low power in the immediate side loops,
reaching a maximum of 30% at wavelengths 186.716 nm and

Figure 4. Results for the phase of the double-slit model in the visible
range at a wavelength of 670 nm at the focal point at a distance of
0.35 microns from the structure.

sides of the side slits is three, number of gratings between the

slits is ve, and distance x is 220 nm. The range of wavelengths used for the incident source of excitation is from
450 nm750 nm, and the polarization is TM. The simulation
parameters are dx = dy = 2.5 nm and dt = 0.039 7275 fs, using
a perfect matched layer (PML) as a boundary condition in
both the x and y directions for all the simulations. The eld
intensity at the emerging side of the light demonstrates that at
a wavelength of 670 nm, the proposed structure exhibits a
super-focusing effect with FWHM of 220 nm, as shown in
gure 3. Figure 4 shows the oscillations in the phase along the
Y-axis along the focal line demonstrating the super-oscillations effect. The optimized single slit design has the following
geometrical parameters: slit width (ws) is 200 nm, metal
thickness (t) is 200 nm, grating period (p) is 100 nm, grating
depth (d) is 110 nm, grating width (wg) is 10 nm, number of
gratings on the sides of the side slits is two, and distance x is
115 nm. The range of wavelengths used for the incident
source of excitation is from 450 nm750 nm, and the polarization is TM. The simulation parameters are dx = dy = 8.1 nm
1
-3

Re(E)

0.8 0.8

-2.5
X (microns)

0.9

0.7

-2

0.6 0.6

-1.5

0.5
0.4 0.4

-1

0.3
-0.5

0.2 0.2
0.1

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

0
-3.5

-3

-2.5

-2

-1.5

Y(microns)

Y (microns)

-1

-0.5

0.5

(b)

(a)

Figure 5. Results for the single slit model in the visible range: (a) the eld intensity distribution, showing a focal point at a distance of 3.8

microns from the structure; (b) the intensity (measured in arbitrary units) vs the distance along the y-axis at a distance of 3.8 microns from the
surface, showing a peak at an intensity of approximately 1.0 (au) and an FWHM of 340 nm.
5

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al
2

0
2.0

1.8

0.2

1.6

0.4

1.4

0.6

X (microns)

E intensity

1.6

1.2

0.8

0.4

1.2

0.8

0.8

1.2
1.4

0.6

1.6

0.4

1.8

-2.2

-1.9

-1.3

-1.6

0.2

2
-2.2

-1.0

-2

-1.8

y (microns)

-1.6
-1.4
Y (microns)

-1.2

-1

-0.8

(b)

(a)

2
0.2

1.8
1.6

1.3

1.0

X (microns)

E intensity

0.4

0.7

1.4
1.2

0.6

1
0.8

0.8

0.6
0.4

0.4

0.2
0.1
-2.2

-1.9

-1.3

-1.6

-1.0

1.2
-2.2

-2

-1.8

-1.6

-1.4

-1.2

-1

-0.8

Y (microns)

y (microns)

(d)

(c)

Figure 6. Super-focusing in the deep UV at 171 nm (a)(b) and 117 nm (c)(d): (a) the electric eld intensity (measured in arbitrary units) vs
the distance along the y-axis at a distance of 0.6 microns from the structure, showing a peak at an intensity of approximately 2.1 and an
FWHM of 80 nm; (b) the 2D electric eld intensity, showing a focal point at a distance of 0.2 microns from the structure; (c) the intensity
(measured in arbitrary units) vs the distance along the y-axis at a distance of 0.6 microns from the structure, showing a peak at an intensity of
approximately 1.6 and an FWHM of 54.5 nm; (d) the electric eld intensity, showing a focal point at a distance of 0.6 microns from the
structure.

Similar effects can be produced using optical needles

super-oscillatory lens (ONSOL). ONSOLs can produce needle-shaped beams [33]. Although ONSOLs can produce
needle-shaped beams that are much narrower and that can
span longer distances; the distance over which the beam is
consistent is shorter, and its steering capability is much more
limited compared to our structure due to the limitations
imposed by the super-oscillation concept, such as the highenergy side bands. Another method proposed by Tao Liu et al
[34], produced a consistent beam over a long distance (up to
10) with an FWHM of 0.36 with super-Gaussian intensity
by modulating the incident beam over an annular paraboloid
mirror. However, such a system requires a high degree of
sophistication, such as a high NA paraboloid mirror with a
high-enough surface accuracy (>/10) and an accurate
acquiring of the amplitude transmission (TCSF). Such complications make the system difcult and costly to be practically implemented, unlike the plasmonic lenses that were
utilized in our proposed design.

186.18 nm with an FWHM of 64 nm and 70 nm, respectively

as shown in gure 7. Figure 8 shows the oscillations in the
phase along the Y-axis along the focal line demonstrating
rapid phase change around the focal spot, which demonstrates
the super-oscillations effect.

4. Beaming models (nanoantenna)

The same structure can also be utilized for beaming the light.
This beaming effect allows the structure to work as a
nanoantenna in the near eld region or within a few wavelengths from the slit. This nanoantenna can be utilized to
excite a molecule or to receive the radiation from an excited
molecule. The beam can be steered by simply changing the
incident angle of the plane wave. This steering mechanism
can be useful to control a trapped particle, for example. The
steering can also occur by changing the meta surface angle
instead, which results in the same effect.
6

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al
2.5

Re(E)

2.5

0.02
0.04

X (microns)

0.05
0.08

1.5

1.5

0.1
0.12

0.14
0.16

0.5

0.5

0.18
0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.4

0
0.1

Y (microns)

0.2

(a)
2.5

Re(E)

0.02

1.8

0.04

1.6

0.06
X (microns)

0.5

(b)

1.4

0.08

1.2
0.1

1.5

0.12

0.8

0.14

0.6

0.16

0.4

0.18
0.2

0.4

0.3

y(microns)

0.5

0.2
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

1.4

0.2

0.3

0.4

Y (microns)

y(microns)

(c)

(d)

0.5

Figure 7. Super-focusing in the deep UV at 186.716 nm (a), (b) and 186.18 nm (c), (d): (a) the 2D electric eld intensity showing a
focal point at a distance of 0.04 microns from the structure; (b) The electric eld intensity (measured in arbitrary units) vs the
distance along the y-axis at a distance of 0.04 microns from the structure, showing a peak at an intensity of approximately 2.5 and an
FWHM of 64 nm; (c) the electric eld intensity, showing a focal point at a distance of 0.04 microns from the structure; (d) the
intensity (measured in arbitrary units) vs the distance along the y-axis at a distance of 0.04 microns from the structure, showing a
peak at an intensity of approximately 2.4 and an FWHM of 70 nm.

In this case, the model has the following geometrical

properties: slit width (ws) is 200 nm, metal thickness (t) is
200 nm, grating period (p) is 350 nm, grating depth (d) is
50 nm, grating width (ws) is 150 nm, number of gratings on
the outer sides of the side slits is three, number of gratings
between the slits is ve, and the distance x is 500 nm. The
simulation parameters are: dx and dy 2.5 nm and
dt = 0.023 4609 fs. The range of wavelengths for the incident
source is between 450 nm750 nm. The incident source at
different angles is studied and shown in gure 9. The optimized structure is obtained such that the light beam can
preserve its pencil shape over a wide angle range. As shown
in gure 9, the proposed pencil beam sustains the beaming
shape for a distance of up to 4. Thus, it may be suitable for
optical tweezing application to trap particles and move them
over a wide range.

Figure 8. Results for the phase of the double slit model in the UV

range at a wavelength of 186.716 nm at the focal point at a distance

of 0.04 microns from the structure.
7

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al
1

0.6

2
0.4

2.5
3

0.8

1
X (microns)

1.5

0.5

1.5

0.5

2
0.4

2.5
3

0.2

0.2

-3

-2

-1
Y (microns)

1.5

0.5

2
0.4

2.5
3

0.2

3.5

3.5

3.5

0.8

1
X (microns)

0.8

1
X (microns)

0.5

0.5

-3

-2

-1

-3

-2

Y (microns)

(a)

(c)

(b)

1
0.5

0.5
0.8

1
1.5

0.6

2
0.4

2.5
3

0.8

1
X (microns)

X (microns)

-1
0
Y (microns)

1.5

0.6

2
0.4

2.5
3

0.2

3.5

0.2

3.5
-3

-2

-1

0
-3

Y (microns)

(d)

-2

-1
Y (microns)

(e)

Figure 9. Results for the double slit beaming model: (a) the 2D electric eld intensity (measured in arbitrary units), showing a beam at

incident wavelength of 750 nm at a 0 angle with the horizontal and an FWHM of 600 nm; (b) the 2D electric eld intensity (measured in
arbitrary units) showing a beam at incident wavelength of 750 nm at a 10 angle with the horizontal; (c) the 2D electric eld intensity
(measured in arbitrary units), showing a beam at incident wavelength of 750 nm at a -10 angle with the horizontal; (d) the 2D electric eld
intensity (measured in arbitrary units), showing a beam at incident wavelength of 750 nm at a 30 angle with the horizontal; (e) the 2D
electric eld intensity (measured in arbitrary units), showing a beam at incident wavelength of 750 nm at a -30 angle with the horizontal.

Figure 10. Graphs of the effect of tooth depth on an FWHM (a) and the effect of tooth width on an FWHM (b).

5. Discussion and conclusion

The duty cycle is the ratio between the grating separation

and tooth width within a period. The duty cycle is varied by
changing the tooth width from 10 nm to 135 nm while
keeping all other geometrical and physical parameters of the
model constant as shown in gure 10. It is obvious from this
gure that the duty cycle affects the FWHM of the main loop
signicantly. The FWHM shows a minimum of 170 nm (/4)
at a tooth width of 70 nm and at a wavelength of 670 nm. It is
worth noting that increasing the focusing beyond (/3)

In order to understand the effect of changing the tooth shape

parameters on the performance of the meta surface, the tooth
depth and width and the effect of these parameters on the
FWHM of the main loop are analyzed independently. It was
observed that the effect of the tooth depth affected the FWHM
signicantly, since it controls whether the device produces a
subwavelength beam or a super-focus.
8

J. Opt. 16 (2014) 105007

M El Maklizi et al

increases the power in the side loops, reaching 50% of the

maximum value of the main loop in the (/4) case. However,
the side loops do not exceed 20% in the (/3) case shown in
gure 3.
In conclusion, we propose this novel structure for superfocusing the light at visible and UV ranges. The structure is
simple and straightforward: two slits in a metal surface are utilized, surrounded by gratings. The structure is capable of
focusing the light in a hot-spot with an FWHM of (/3) and (/
4), thus beating the diffraction limit. The effect of the design
parameters on the properties of the produced image was also
presented. Moreover, the ability of the structure to beam the
emerging light over a wide angle range was demonstrated.

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