Ultra-long light sheets via curved beam intercrossing

Abstract

An approach to yield a planar light sheet with thickness below the Abbe’s diffraction limit over ultra-long propagation distances is presented. Such features emerge by an induced interference of the fields associated to the caustic branches of a cusp-type curved beam. The optical sheet width and length are dynamically tuned by just varying one parameter of the signal encoded in a spatial light modulator within a standard setup for curved beam generation. This light sheet possesses the following characteristics: a high length-to-width ratio, a width below the Abbe’s diffraction limit, reduced sidelobes, and very low spreading along the sheet length. These planar light sheets could be useful in light-sheet microscopy and applications to surface and interface physics. In addition, these sheets can be easily transformed in an optical needle having rectangular symmetry by using a two-dimensional cusp beam instead of an one-dimensional beam.