Development of a 500 Å spatial resolution light microscope

Force measurements with the atomic force microscope: Technique, interpretation and applications

“…With the STM it became possible to image single atoms on ''flat'' (i.e., not a tip) surfaces. In parallel the scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) was invented which allowed microscopy with light below the optical resolution limit [3,4]. The last one of the series is the AFM, invented by Binnig et al [5].…”

Light scattering under nanofocusing: Towards coherent nanoscopies

“…The past decades have witnessed the development of several successful attempts in this regard, such as scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) [1][2][3][4][5], single-molecule spectroscopy [6][7][8][9][10] and the combination of the two [11][12][13][14]. These efforts have however suffered from the mismatch between light and nanoscale matter, which leads to a small throughput between the input and output signals.…”

Scanning near-field optical microscopy with aperture probes: Fundamentals and applications

“…[17][18][19] Independently, a similar scheme was proposed and developed by Lewis and his group at Cornell University. [20][21][22] The key innovation was the fabrication of a subwavelength optical aperture at the apex of a sharply pointed transparent probe tip that was coated with a metal. In addition, a feedback loop was implemented maintaining a constant gapwidth of only a few nanometers while raster scanning the sample in close proximity to the fixed probe.…”

“…Figure 1͑a͒ shows the classical aperture SNOM configuration in which an aperture probe is illuminating a small area of a sample surface. 4,5,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] In the most general configuration with respect to light detection, the sample is placed on top of a hemispherical substrate which allows the capture of all the radiation emerging from the probe sample interaction zone into the far field. 24,25 Figure 1͑b͒ shows the intriguing ''apertureless'' NFO techniques.…”