Near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM or SNOM) is a form of scanning probe microscope (SPM), which is used to observe the optical properties of a sample surface with a nanometer-scale spatial resolution. Since the near-field light strongly interacts with the sample surface, or with nanometer-scale objects on the substrate's surface, NSOM is advantageous to excite only the vicinity of a s...

Polarization properties of apertureless-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (a-SNOM) were measured experimentally and were also analyzed using a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation. Our study reveals that the polarization properties in the a-SNOM are maintained and the a-SNOM works as a wave plate expressed by a Jones matrix. The measured signals obtained by the lock-in dete...

We have implemented continuous-wave two-photon excitation of near-UV absorbing fluorophores in a scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM). The 647-nm emission of an Ar-Kr mixed gas laser was used to excite the UV-absorbing DNA dyes DAPI, the bisbenzimidazole Hoechst 33342, and ethidium bromide in a shared aperture SNOM with uncoated fiber tips. Polytene chromosomes of Drosophila melanogast...

Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) is a powerful alternative method to observe the optical intensity distributions in fabricated nanophotonic structures. Several groups have obtained NSOM images of photonic crystal (PC) [1-2]. Quite recently, we have reported the optical mode images obtained by NSOM on compact PC cavities based on fractional edge dislocations [3]. Here we report high...

We propose to use low-coherence-length cw optical sources with a broad spectrum in heterodyne near-field scanning microscopy in order to imitate optical pulse propagation and to obtain information about spectrally variant properties of nanophotonic components. The dispersion difference in the interferometer arms for a symmetric acousto-optic modulator arrangement is shown to be negligible over ...

The problems encountered with the interpretation of martensite and the various forms of bainite that are found in high strength steel weld metals have been addressed. Field emission gun scanning electron microscopy was found to overcome resolution difficulties often met with light optical microscopy and conventional scanning electron microscopy. The various microstructural constituents were cha...

Optical microscopy suffers from a fundamental resolution limitation arising from the diffractive nature of light. While current solutions to sub-diffraction optical microscopy involve combinations of near-field, non-linear and fine scanning operations, we hereby propose and demonstrate the optical super-microscope (OSM) - a superoscillation-based linear imaging system with far-field working and...

Graphene oxide (GO) thin films were simply deposited on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate via a low-voltage electrodeposition. The GO and GO thin films were characterized by Zeta Potential, X-ray diffraction, Ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectrosc...