Yaniv Eliezer

Super-transmission: the delivery of superoscillations through the absorbing resonance of a dielectric medium

The delivery of a super-oscillatory optical signal through a medium with an absorbing resonance at the super-oscillation frequency is considered theoretically and through simulations. While a regular signal oscillating at the absorption resonance frequency would be completely absorbed after a few absorption lengths, it is found that the superoscillation undergoes quasi-periodic revivals over optically thick distances. In particular revivals of extreme UV local oscillations propagating through Silica Glass over distances which are three orders of magnitude longer than the associated absorbing length are numerically demonstrated.

Axial sub-Fourier focusing of an optical beam

We demonstrate experimentally the generation of an optical beam having an axial focusing that is narrower than the Fourier limit. The beam is constructed from a superposition of Bessel beams with different longitudinal wave vectors, realizing a super-oscillatory axial intensity distribution. Such beams can be useful for microscopy and for optical particle manipulation.

Super defocusing of light by optical sub-oscillations

We show that it is possible to construct spectrally lower bound limited functions which can oscillate locally at an arbitrarily low frequency. Such sub-oscillatory functions are complementary to super-oscillatory functions which are band-limited yet can oscillate locally at an arbitrarily high frequency. We construct a spatially sub-oscillatory optical beam to experimentally demonstrate optical super defocusing.

Breaking the temporal resolution limit by superoscillating optical beats

We experimentally break the temporal Fourier-transform resolution limit by generating a super-oscillating optical beat signal. This result opens the way to greatly improve the temporal resolution in applications using ultra-short optical pulses.

Suboscillations in optics (Conference Presentation)

The mathematical phenomenon of super-oscillation, in which a spectrally bound function oscillates locally at a rate faster than its fastest Fourier component, has found use in both theoretical and applied areas of optical research. We show the existence of a complementary phenomenon we term sub-oscillation, in which a spectrally lower bound limited function oscillates locally at an arbitrarily low frequency beyond the lower band limit. We construct a spatially sub-oscillatory optical beam to experimentally demonstrate optical super defocusing i.e. a very fast, exceptional, expansion of a partially blocked light beam. The relevance of super-oscillations to varied fields such as quantum measurement, optical beam shaping and super-resolution, particle manipulation, electron beam shaping and radio frequency antenna design, suggest that sub-oscillations could find interesting uses in varied fields as well. Our demonstration of super defocusing by itself might be relevant for optical dark-field microscopy. [1] Y. Eliezer and A. Bahbad, Optica 4, 440 (2017)

Particle trapping and conveying using an optical Archimedes’ screw

Trapping and manipulation of particles using laser beams has become an important tool in diverse fields of research. In recent years, particular interest has been devoted to the problem of conveying optically trapped particles over extended distances either downstream or upstream of the direction of photon momentum flow. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an optical analog of the famous Archimedes’ screw where the rotation of a helical-intensity beam is transferred to the axial motion of optically trapped micrometer-scale, airborne, carbon-based particles. With this optical screw, particles were easily conveyed with controlled velocity and direction, upstream or downstream of the optical flow, over a distance of half a centimeter. Our results offer a very simple optical conveyor that could be adapted to a wide range of optical trapping scenarios.