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Superoscillation is an intriguing wave phenomenon which enables subwavelength features propagating into far field and hence has potential applications in super-resolution microscopy as well as particle trapping and manipulation. While previous demonstrations mostly concentrate on designing complicated nanostructures for generating uncontrollable superoscillatory functions, here a new technique which allows for creating polynomially shaped superoscillatory functions that contain phase singularity arrays is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally. Such a technique is implemented in optical experiments for the first time and controllable superoscillatory lobes with feature much below the diffraction limit is achieved. More importantly, a general theoretical framework, which, to our knowledge, has not been reported before, is developed to show how the created superoscillations propagate to a distance of many Rayleigh ranges and eventually disappear when the distance is sufficiently larger. The validity of the model is confirmed by the experiments. The results may trigger further studies in light field shaping and manipulations in subwavelength scale.

The spin-orbit interaction and the extrinsic orbit-orbit interaction of light have been thoroughly studied, which have led to important phenomena including the spin Hall effect, orbital Hall effect, and spin-orbit Hall effect of light. Nevertheless, the concept of optical intrinsic orbit-orbit interaction, which is named as vortex-antivortex interaction, is scarcely known to the authors knowledge. Here, such a novel interaction process is theoretically and experimentally demonstrated, which emerges due to mutual interplays among reciprocal helicities of singular cores in a freely propagating light field. A general model describing the process is presented, which includes a linearly independent term and a nonlinearly coupling term. It is revealed that the strong coupling leads to intuitive mutual attraction between two reciprocal vortices, while the weak coupling, in contrast, results in a counterintuitive repulsive phenomenon. The vortex-antivortex interaction enables the predictions and observations of the orbital angular momentum Hall effect, as well as the stable propagation of an appropriately structured vortex arrays without nonlinear light-matter interactions. The results expand the scope of interaction processes among different forms of optical angular momenta, and open opportunities for studies of new effects using the presented coupling mechanism.

Nondiffracting and shape-preserving light beams have been extensively studied and were shown to exhibit intriguing wave phenomena, which led to applications including particle manipulation, curved plasma channel generation, and optical superresolution. However, these beams are generated by caustics, i.e., conical superposition of waves. As a result, they tend to propagate along a straight line or accelerate in a plane [(1 + 1)D], and tailoring their propagation trajectories in a higher dimension [(2 + 1]D] is challenging. Here we report both theoretically and experimentally a class of nondiffracting solutions to the paraxial wave equation perturbed by harmonic potential. We demonstrate that the initial wave packets of light can be engineered to accelerate along an arbitrary trajectory centered on an elliptic or a circular orbit in a (2 + 1)D configuration, while maintaining their phase and polarization structures during propagation. Such particle-like features manifested by orbital movements can be attributed to the centripetal force of the underlying potential. We name such oscillating wave packets as pendulum-type beams. We suggest the concept can be generalized to other waves such as quantum waves, matter waves, and acoustic waves, opening possibilities for the study and applications of the pendulum-type wave packet in a wide range, e.g., it may be utilized in the field of laser scanning technology.

We demonstrate that the spatially diffractive properties of cylindrical vector beams could be controlled via linear interactions with anisotropic crystals. It is the first time to show experimentally that the diffraction of the vector beams can be either suppressed or enhanced significantly during propagation, depending on the sign of anisotropy. Importantly, it is also possible to create a linear non-spreading and shape-preserving vector beam, by vanishing its diffraction during propagation via strong anisotropy in a crystal. The manageable diffractive effect enables manipulating propagation dynamics of the circular Airy vector beams, i.e., their propagation trajectories can be dynamically controlled by weakening or enhancing self-acceleration of the Airy beam. We further demonstrate that the cylindrical vector beams with initially zero orbital angular momentum can be rotated either clockwise or anticlockwise, relying on the sign of the anisotropy.