Focal Spot Analysis Of Radially Polarized Femtosecond Laser Pulses

When radially polarized light beams focus through high numerical-aperture lens, there will be a very strong longitudinal component of the light field near the focus. And, under the condition of certain system parameters, they can shape a spot which is over the focusing spot of the diffraction limit, which are the superiorities that linearly polarized light and circularly polarized light do not have. Besides, what we have found in the experiment is that radially polarized femtosecond laser pulses own the same superiorities, which provides the basis for using the focusing characteristics of radially polarized light beams under the condition of shorter and more powerful laser pulses. So far, although people have studied a lot on radially polarized light beams, this kind of light beams' focusing characters are rarely researched. What is worse, most research of its focusing characters still stays in the stage of theoretical simulation, and it seems that none of people have really studied it by the way of experiments. This article is precisely based on this. On the basis of predecessors' a lot of theoretical research, the article pays more attention on analyzing radially polarized light beams' focusing character through experiments. What's more, the article, based on femtosecond laser pulses, compares the differences of the focusing nature among linearly polarized light, circularly polarized light and radially polarized light. And it gets the conclusion that radially polarized femtosecond laser pulses have better focusing character in longitudinal light field, confirming the feasibility that radially polarized light beams can be used in the fields of pulling, catching, and accelerating particles, metal cutting and high-density storage.