Abstract

Interest in scanning near-field fluorescence microscopes increases dramatically for a few years.¹ Classically, they work using either fluorescence quenching or spectroscopic data. We present a new kind of microscope dealing with the analysis of fluorescence decay time. The latter depends strongly on the tip-to-sample distance² and the theoretical bases are described. The decay times attached to each pixel leads to the determination of the distance between the tip and the sample. Moving the tip according to the two lateral directions yields an image of the investigated surface. The setup is essentially devoted to metal-coated samples but it can be applied to other materials.

© 1994 IEEE