Super-long photonic nanojet generated from liquid-filled hollow microcylinder

Photonic nanojet (PNJ) from liquid-filled hollow microcylinder (LFHM) under a liquid immersion condition is numerically investigated based on the finite element method and physically analyzed with ray optics. Simulation and analysis results show that, by simultaneously introducing the immersed liquid and filled liquid, the propagation beam is greatly flattened, and super-long PNJs with decay length more than 100 times the illumination wavelengths are obtained in the outer near-field region of the LFHM. With the variation of the refractive index contrast between the filled and immersed-liquids, the properties of the PNJs, such as the focal distance, decay length, full width at half-maximum, and maximum light intensity can be flexibly tuned. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America