Chapter 1: Cylindrical Vector Beams

Abstract

Cylindrical vector beams are considered one special class of optical vector fields as the axially symmetric beam solution to the full vector electromagnetic wave equation. In this chapter, a brief introduction of the mathematical and graphical descriptions of the cylindrical vector beams will be provided. Various active and passive methods to generate these cylindrical vector beams are reviewed. Expressions for the focal field distributions of the cylindrical vector beams focused by high numerical aperture objective lens are derived. The cylindrical polarization symmetry of this special class of optical vector beams gives rise to unique focusing properties under high numerical aperture condition with important applications including optical imaging and manipulation.