Abstract

A large class of near-field optical microscopes employ tapered, A1 coated single mode optical fibers which form a subwavelength aperture at their ends. Better spatial resolution had been achieved at IBM by an appertureless scheme in which a sharp nanosize probe of an AFM device was externally illuminated and the amplitude of the scattered light was interferometrically measured in the far-field zone.¹

© 1999 Optical Society of America