Pupil masks for 2-D intensity synthesis in a high numerical aperture focusing system

Abstract

A high numerical aperture (NA) lens is used in many applications that require tightly focused beams including microscopy. The Debye-Wolf electromagnetic diffraction integral describes focusing by high NA lenses. Using an eigenfunction expansion of this integral, we numerically obtain a pupil mask that generates an arbitrary, within the diffraction limit, intensity distribution at the Gaussian focal plane.