Haifeng WANG, F. H. GROEN¹, S. F. PEREIRA¹, and J. J. M. BRAAT¹

Data Storage Institute, DSI Building, 5 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117608
¹Optics Research Group, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, 1 Lorentzweg, 2628 CJ Delft, The Netherlands

(Received February 28, 2005; Accepted September 30, 2005)

The design and analysis of an extremely compact micron-sized imaging system consisting of a multimode rectangular waveguide is presented, and both the on- and off-axis imaging characteristics in the far field are studied. The imaging capabilities of this system are comparable to that of a high numerical aperture lens system with the advantage that it is extremely compact, simple to be fabricated and can be extended to arrays.

Key words: imaging systems, microscopy, optical data storage, integrated optics