Sharply Focused Azimuthally Polarized Beams with Magnetic Dominance: Near-Field Characterization at Nanoscale by Photoinduced Force Microscopy

Abstract

Azimuthally polarized beams are gaining fundamental importance for near-field force microscopy systems to inspect photoinduced magnetism in special molecules or nanostructures, due to their strong axial magnetic field and vanishing electric field. The magnetic dominant region represents a unique trait of such a beam as a potentially ideal structured light to probe photoinduced magnetism at the nanoscale. Therefore, we present a near-field characterization of an optical, sharply focused azimuthally polarized beam using photoinduced force microscopy, a technique with simultaneous near-field excitation and detection, achieving nanoscale resolution well beyond the diffraction limit. Such a method exploits the photoinduced gradient force on a nanotip, mechanically detected as forced oscillations of the cantilever in an atomic force microscopy system upon external light illumination. The photoinduced force is strongly localized, which that depends only on the near-field signal free from background scattering photons, granting photoinduced force microscopy a superior performance over its precedent near-field scanning optical microscopy. We develop an analytical model to correct the tip-induced measurement anisotropy, suppress the background noise, and reveal the local electric field distribution of the azimuthally polarized beam. These measurements are used to retrieve its strong longitudinal axial magnetic field at the center of the polarization vortex where the electric field vanishes. This study can lead to a plethora of possibilities in optomechanical, chemical, or biomedical applications. We also propose and discuss how to use such beams with polarization azimuthal symmetry as a way to calibrate microscope nanotips.