Abstract

We present an experimental study on the diffraction of light by an aperture small compared with the wavelength. The aperture is illuminated by laser light guided in a metal-clad tapered optical fiber. We investigate different orientations of the aperture in the plane: normal to the cleaved plane, oblique to the cleaved plane, and off-center. We measure the far-field, two-dimensional intensity distributions of the diffracted light as functions of angle coordinates θ and ϕ in a full half-space for various polarization states and analyze the patterns by using low-order multipole fields. We also examine the near- and far-field effects of placing small periodic corrugations near the aperture, focusing on the role of surface-wave excitations. We measure the near-field intensity distributions near the aperture with a near-field scanning optical microscope and discuss their relation to the far-field diffracted fields.

© 2001 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
OSA Recommended Articles
Multipole analysis of the radiation from near-field optical probes

D. J. Shin, A. Chavez-Pirson, and Y. H. Lee
Opt. Lett. 25(3) 171-173 (2000)

Analysis and numerical computation of diffraction of an optical field by a subwavelength-size aperture in a thick metallic screen by use of a volume integral equation

Kazuo Tanaka and Masahiro Tanaka
Appl. Opt. 43(8) 1734-1746 (2004)

Description of near– and far–field light emitted from a metal–coated tapered fiber tip

Tomasz J. Antosiewicz and Tomasz Szoplik
Opt. Express 15(12) 7845-7852 (2007)

More Recommended Articles

References

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Citation lists with outbound citation links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Cited By

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Figures (8)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Figure files are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Tables (3)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article tables are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Equations (17)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Equations are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription

Metrics

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article level metrics are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access OSA Member Subscription