Simulated holographic three-dimensional intensity shaping of evanescent-wave fields

The size of bright structures in traveling-wave light fields is limited by diffraction. This in turn limits a number of technologies, for example, optical trapping. One way to beat the diffraction limit is to use evanescent waves instead of traveling waves. Here we apply a holographic algorithm, direct search, to the shaping of complex evanescent-wave fields. We simulate three-dimensional intensity shaping of evanescent-wave fields using this approach, and we investigate some of its limitations.