Photonic Nanojet engineering: Focal point shaping with scattering phenomena of dielectric microspheres

We experimentally engineer Nanojets produced by dielectric spheres by varying the illumination and observe the effect with a high-resolution interference microscope (HRIM). Converging and diverging spherical wavefronts and BesselGauss beams are considered. We find that the diverging wavefront pushes Nanojets away from the surface of the sphere without change of the spot size. This allows earning several micrometers of working distance contrary to the Nanojet confined at the sphere’s surface. When the radius of curvature of the incident wavefront is greater than about 5 times the sphere size, the Nanojet moves back to the sphere surface like it is found for plane wave incidence. On-axis BesselGauss beam illumination with the central lobe covering the whole sphere leads to the same results as the plane wave case. Off-axis Bessel beam illumination can generate multiple-spot Nanojets. We demonstrate the separation of such spots of about 220 nm at 642 nm. This separation is smaller than the feature sizes defined by the diffraction limit at this wavelength. We discuss briefly applications of engineered Nanojets for nano-lithography and near-field sensing.