Fighting against diffraction: apodization and near field diffraction structures

Abstract Diffraction is a natural phenomenon, which occurs when waves propagate or encounter an obstacle. Diffraction is also a fundamental aspect of modern optics: all imaging systems are diffraction systems. However, like a coin has two sides, diffraction also leads to some unfavorable effects, such as an increase in the size of a beam during propagation, and a limited minimal beam size after focusing. To overcome these disadvantages set by diffraction, many techniques have been developed by various groups, including apodization techniques to reduce the divergence of a laser beam and increase the resolution, and time reversal, STED microscopy, super lenses and optical antennas to obtain resolution down to nano‐scale. This review concentrates on the diffraction of electromagnetic waves, and the ways to overcome beam divergence and the diffraction limit.