Birefringent masks that are optimal for generating bottle fields.

An optical bottle field containing a three-dimensional intensity null at the focal point can be generated by placing a spatially inhomogeneous birefringent mask at the pupil of an aplanatic high-NA focusing system. We derive the optimal birefringence distribution for which a uniformly polarized input beam is converted into a bottle field with the sharpest possible null in intensity. We show that a stress engineered optical (SEO) window, which has a radially varying retardance, followed by a half-wave plate, performs nearly as well as the optimal solution. Experimental results corroborate that an SEO element can be used to generate a bottle field.