Polarisation properties of a perfect high-NA focusing lens

High NA lenses are very important in the field of microscopy and optical storage. For numerical apertures larger than 0.8, the polarisation properties are relevant. Common vector approaches use the constant field amplitude distribution at the pupil to model the lens focus field. Our approach starts with an exact model for an aspheric, perfect focusing lens and we consider Fresnel transmission losses for calculating the vector-field distribution. Interestingly, the theory does not require any knowledge about the shape of the aspheric surface. Finally, we compare the results to those obtained from existing theories.