On focused fields with maximum electric field components and images of electric dipoles

We study focused fields which, for a given total power and a given numerical aperture, have maximum electric field amplitude in some direction in the focal point and are linearly polarized along this direction. It is shown that the optimum field is identical to the image of an electric dipole with unit magnification. In particular, the field...

Finite-element model for three-dimensional optical scattering problems

We present a three-dimensional model based on the finite-element method for solving the time harmonic Maxwell equation in optics. It applies to isotropic or anisotropic dielectrics and metals and to many configurations such as an isolated scatterer in a multilayer, bi-gratings, and crystals. We discuss the application of the model to near-field...

Extended Nijboer–Zernike approach to aberration and birefringence retrieval in a high-numerical-aperture optical system

The judgment of the imaging quality of an optical system can be carried out by examining its through-focus intensity distribution. It has been shown in a previous paper that a scalar-wave analysis of the imaging process according to the extended Nijboer–Zernike theory allows the retrieval of the complex pupil function of the imaging system,...