Near-field scanning solid immersion microscope

Abstract

We report a near-field scanning optical microscope using a solid immersion lens having a sharp tip that is mounted to a cantilever. The sharp tip allows the sample to enter the near field of the illumination. The cantilever provides sensitive control of forces. We describe two types of near-field optical contrast, interference and reflection, that simultaneously measure surface topography and reflectivity. Using a super-hemispherical lens with index n=2.2 and 442 nm illumination, the microscope resolves optical features smaller than 150 nm, a factor of 2 improvement over a conventional optical microscope.