Radially and azimuthally polarized non paraxial Bessel beams made simple

We present a method for the realization of radial and azimuthal polarization for non-paraxial beams in a rigorous but simple manner. This is done by constructing independent exact vector solutions of Maxwell's equations from scalar Bessel beams and combining them together by analogy with the paraxial case. In this way we are able to obtain spatial and polarization patterns analogous to the traditional cylindrically polarized paraxial wave field. Applications of these beams are discussed.