Synthesis of Self‐Healing Microbeam by Superposition of Self‐Decelerating Corner‐Diffraction Beams

Quasi‐nondiffracting (QND) optical beams are well known for their long‐range propagation and self‐healing capabilities. Shrinking their beam width down to the mesoscale regime can open up many new applications in microtechnology, but the complexity of the beam‐forming platform remains the major hindrance to its realization. In contrast, the photonic nanojets (PNJs) boast simple platforms for their generation and inherently small beam size, but their utilization has been limited mainly to near‐field applications. This work aims to hybridize the QND and PNJ beam concepts, eventually realizing microscale, self‐healing QND beams using a simple, PNJ‐style platform. To that end, the microscale cuboids made of low‐index dielectric materials are dually utilized, first to generate two self‐decelerating corner‐diffraction beams and then to superpose them into a long‐range (10 λ –100 λ ) microbeam. The QND–PNJ hybridization concept and model will contribute synergistically to the study and application of the microscale optical beams.