Continuous cubic phase microplates for generating high-quality Airy beams with strong deflection

Owing to the distinguishing properties of nondiffraction, self-healing, and transverse acceleration, Airy beams have attracted much attention in the past decade. To date, a simple approach for exquisitely fabricating cubic phase plates with both continuous variation of phase and micro size still remains challenging, which limits the generation of high-quality Airy beams for integrated micro-optics. Here, we report the elaborate design and fabrication of a continuous cubic phase microplate (CCPP) for generating high-quality Airy beams in micrometer scale. A CCPP with a precise size (60  μm×60  μm×1.1  μm) is fabricated by femtosecond laser direct writing, exhibiting a high optical efficiency (∼79%). The high-quality Airy beam generated via the CCPP demonstrates an unprecedentedly strong deflection (∼4.2  μm within a 90 μm propagation distance) as well as being diffraction-free. Our research on the design and fabrication of miniature Airy phase plates paves the way toward high-performance integrated optics, optical micromanipulation, and optical imaging.