Focusing a beam beyond the diffraction limit using a hyperlens-based device

A super-focusing device composed of a focusing objective and a hyperlens is proposed to focus an incident plane wave into the deep subwavelength dimension. In the device, the objective converts the incident plane wave into a convergent one. The half cylindrical hyperlens can support high wave vector k modes propagating towards its core. So the convergent wave can be focused into an ultrasmall spot beyond the diffraction limit. The layout is proposed for the super-focusing device and its characteristics are investigated theoretically. Numerical simulations verify that the focused beams are confined in a spot with a diameter of 16.3 nm in the focal plane of the focusing objective with a numerical aperture of 0.6, which corresponds to a super-resolution spot of \lambda_0/23 (\lambda_0 is the wavelength in vacuum). The simulations confirm the effectiveness of the proposed device.