Diffractive superresolution elements for radially polarized light.

An optimization method for diffractive superresolution elements (DSEs) for radially polarized light is proposed. Only the longitudinal component of the focused field of radially polarized light is considered for optimization, and the results are 0, pi two-phase distributed DSEs. A series of such DSEs are designed, and the corresponding superresolution performances are calculated with both longitudinal and transverse components of the focused field of radially polarized light. Simulation results show that good superresolution performance can be obtained by the optimization method considering only the longitudinal component of the focused field of radially polarized light. Simulation results also show that such DSEs realize better superresolution performance with radially polarized light than with linearly polarized light.