Developing a Cantilever-type Near-field Scanning Optical Microscope Using a Single Laser for Topography Detection and Sample Excitation

The capabilities of the near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) for obtaining high resolution lateral topographical images as well as for mapping the spectroscopic and optical properties of a sample below the diffraction limit of light have made it an attractive research field for most researchers dealing with optical characteristics of materials in nano scales. The apertured NSOM technique involves confining light into an aperture of sub-wavelength size and using it to illuminate a sample maintained at a distance equal to a fraction of the sub-wavelength aperture (near-field region). In this article, we present a setup for developing NSOM using a cantilever with a sub-wavelength aperture at the tip. A single laser is used for both cantilever deflection measurement and near-field sample excitation. The laser beam is focused at the apex of the cantilever where a portion of the beam is reflected and the other portion goes through the aperture and causes local near-field optical excitation of the sample, which is then raster scanned in the near-field region. The reflected beam is used for an optical beam deflection technique that yields topographical images by controlling the probe-sample in nano-distance. The fluorescence emissions signal is detected in far-field by the help of a silicon avalanche photodiode. The images obtained using this method show a good correlation between the topographical image and the mapping of the fluorescence emissions.