Nondiffracting structured light has attracted considerable attention owing to broad applications in both the classical and quantum optics. Despite extensive research, existing generation approaches suffer from a contradiction between the subwavelength focal spot size and the strong side lobes, leading to a low-contrast localized light field in the far field. Here, we theoretically report a distinct technique for the generation of high-contrast nondiffracting structured light with its feature size reaching a subwavelength scale. The presented technique relies on a randomly perturbed sharp-edge aperture, which comprises a basic circular obstacle for exciting the in-phase high-spatial-frequency diffractive waves and randomized slit motifs for realizing destructive interference among the zero-order diffractive components, emerging from the sharp-edge diffraction. With this framework, we obtain a continuous high-contrast light needle, both for the zero-order light mode and the higher-order light with topological structure. In both cases, the resultant light fields preserve their subwavelength intensity profiles along propagation distance. This operating strategy provides an effective manner for structured light generation in the subwavelength scale, offering opportunities for advanced applications such as super-resolution imaging and nano-scale light–matter interaction.
Guo et al. (2026) studied this question.