Photonic nanojet of cylindrical metalens assembled by hexagonally arranged nanofibers for breaking the diffraction limit

We designed a novel cylindrical metalens assembled by hexagonally arranged close-contact nanofibers. A near-field focusing nanojet with a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) waist, 26.7% smaller than the Abbe diffraction limit for 532 nm wavelength light, is observed at the bottom of a 1600 nm diameter cylindrical metalens assembled by 160 nm diameter nanofibers irradiated by a plane wave from the top. Using differently sized nanofibers as building blocks to assemble the metalens, the waist size of the produced photonic nanojet in the near-field zone and the lateral resolution of the focus can be flexibly adjusted, simultaneously breaking the diffraction limit. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America