Lateral and axial resolutions of an angle-deviation microscope for different numerical apertures: experimental results

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the lateral and axial resolutions of a transmission laser-scanning angle-deviation microscope (TADM) with different numerical aperture (NA) values. The TADM is based on geometric optics and surface plasmon resonance principles. The surface height is proportional to the phase difference between two marginal rays of the test beam, which is passed through the test medium. We used common-path heterodyne interferometry to measure the phase difference in real time, and used a personal computer to calculate and plot the surface profile. The experimental results showed that the best lateral and axial resolutions for NA = 0.41 were 0.5 μm and 3 nm, respectively, and the lateral resolution breaks through the diffraction limits.