An infrared photon scanning tunnelling microscope for investigations of near-field imaging : Electromagnetic optics

Despite the rapid growth of near-field optical microscopy in the past decade, many questions about the imaging properties of near-field microscopes remain unanswered. In this paper we describe a novel near-field optical microscope, employing CO 2 laser illumination and a silver halide fibre probe, and demonstrate its potential for fundamental investigations of near-field imaging.