Paper published in Optics Communications

Our work on the focal volume structure of spatially inhomogeneous polarization beams focused by a novel 'fractal' axicon has been published as Zhirong Liu, Kelin Huang, Xun Wang & P. H. Jones 'Tight focusing of radially polarized beams modulated by a fractal conical lens' Opt. Commun. 402 231-237 (2017).

From the abstract: A novel high numerical aperture (NA) focusing system with a fractal conical lens (FCL) is proposed, and tight focusing of radially polarized beams through the proposed optical system is investigated theoretically and numerically. The influence of several relevant factors, including the FCL’s stage $S$, objective lens’ NA, and truncation parameter ${\beta }_0$, on the targeted beam’s focusing characteristics in the focal region is discussed in detail. It is found that, when a FCL with S≥0$\mathrm{}$ is employed, position of the major focal point would shift from the geometric focal point, and the focused intensity distributions cannot maintain symmetrical about the focus any more, although they present different profiles for various truncation parameters ${\beta }_0$. When $S\ge 2$, multiple focal points can be generated, i.e., a single major focus and a series of subsidiary foci surrounding it along the optical axis, which form a focal region. These unique focusing characteristics with a FCL are remarkably different from that of without a FCL. The fascinating findings here may be taken advantage of when using radially polarized beams in exploiting new-type optical tweezers and making use of a FCL.

Paper published in IEEE Photonics Journal

Our work on a novel optical trapping system using fractal optics and spatially inhomogneous polarisation of light has been published as Zhirong Liu and P. H. Jones, 'Fractal conical lens optical tweezers', IEEE Photonics Journal 9 6500111 (2017)

From the abstract: We propose a novel optical tweezers composed of an annular beam with alternate radially and azimuthally polarized rings modulated by a fractal conical lens (FCL) and demonstrate its optical forces on Rayleigh dielectric particles both analytically and numerically. Owing to the optical system's particular focusing properties, which could generate a dark-centered or peak-centered intensity distribution in the focal region when selecting an appropriate truncation parameter in front of the focusing lens, the proposed FCL optical tweezers could selectively trap and manipulate dielectric mesoscopic particles with low- or high-refractive indices by appropriately adjusting the radius of the pupil or the beam. Finally, the stability conditions for effective trapping and manipulation Rayleigh particles are analyzed.