Modeling axial irradiance distortion in holographic optical needles produced with high numerical aperture lenses

Abstract

Optical needles produced by means of diffractive technology might display limited quality and uniformity. It has been suggested that the bulky optical elements present on these setups can be responsible of such behavior. In particular, issues such as the lack of flatness of the optical components, modulation errors in the holographic displays, and optical aberrations might degrade the quality of the needle. In this paper, we model how these variables affect the uniformity of the irradiance of the needle on the propagation axis. A comparison between experimental and computationally estimated results is provided.