Hot Paper - Surpassing the diffraction limit in long-range laser engineering via cross-scale vectorial optical field manipulation: perspectives and outlooks

Surpassing the diffraction limit in long-range laser engineering via cross-scale vectorial optical field manipulation: perspectives and outlooks

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Yinghui Guo 郭迎辉 ¹ ² ³, Mingbo Pu 蒲明博 ¹ ² ³, Yang Li 李阳 ¹ ² ³, Mingfeng Xu 徐明峰 ¹ ² ³, Xiangang Luo 罗先刚 ¹ ² ³

¹ State Key Laboratory of Optical Field Manipulation Science and Technology, Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610209, China
中国成都中国科学院光电技术研究所光场调控科学技术全国重点实验室
² Research Center on Vector Optical Fields, Institute of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610209, China
中国成都中国科学院光电技术研究所矢量光场研究中心
³ College of Materials Sciences and Opto-Electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
中国北京中国科学院大学材料科学与光电技术学院

https://doi.org/10.29026/oea.2025.250256

https://www.oejournal.org/oea/article/doi/10.29026/oea.2025.250256

Opto-Electronic Advances, 25 December 2025

Abstract

We present a vectorial optical field (VOF) framework that surpasses the diffraction limit in both long-range imaging and energy delivery. By jointly engineering spatial and temporal dimensions, reflective Fourier ptychography is extended to 3.2 km with 0.37× the classical diffraction limit, while a single-photon LiDAR tomography system achieves centimeter-scale, sub-diffraction imaging at 3.3 km using superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors.

These advances demonstrate super-resolution, turbulence-resilient imaging over kilometer-range distances. Beyond super-resolution optical, high power VOFs are able to counteract thermal blooming during atmospheric laser propagation, enhancing on-target power density by a factor larger than 2.

Together, these results may outline a cross-scale paradigm that links high-power vector-field structuring, single-photon detection, and adaptive control—offering a pathway toward next-generation optical systems that integrate imaging, sensing, communication and directed energy within a common physical framework.

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