Near-Field Focusing Plates and Their Design

This paper describes the design of near-field focusing plates, which are grating-like structures that can focus electromagnetic radiation to spots or lines of arbitrarily small subwavelength dimension. A general procedure is outlined for designing a near-field plate given a desired image, and its implementation at microwave frequencies is discussed. Full-wave (method of moments) simulations clearly demonstrate the near-field plate's ability to overcome the diffraction limit. Finally, it is shown that the performance of near-field plates is weakly affected by losses.