B.-Y. Jiang, L. M. Zhang, A. H. Castro Neto, D. N. Basov, and M. M. Fogler Department of Physics, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA Department of Physics, Boston University, 590 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA Centre for Advanced 2D Materials and Graphene Research Centre, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Sing...

Optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR-PAM) is an emerging technique that directly images optical absorption in tissue at high spatial resolution. To date, the majority of OR-PAM systems are based on single-focused optical excitation and ultrasonic detection, limiting the wide-field imaging speed. While 1D multifocal OR-PAM (1D-MFOR-PAM) has been developed, the potential of microlens a...

Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy and related nanoscopy techniques, which utilize a saturable optical transition between a bright and a dark state, overcome the diffraction barrier by confining one of the states to an area smaller than the Airy disk. Scanning this area across the specimen yields subdiffraction images by registering inseparable fluorescent markers sequentially in t...

We report an experimental analysis of the capabilities of scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy for mapping sub-surface features at varying depths. For the first time, we demonstrate experimentally that both the spatial resolution and depth contrast can be improved in subsurface microscopy by demodulating the measured near-field signal at higher harmonics of the probe's tapping...

Near the cut-off radius of a guided waveguide mode of a metal-coated glass fibre tip it is possible to couple radiation to surface plasmons propagating on the outside surface of the metal coating. These surface plasmons converge toward the apex of the tip and interfere constructively for particular polarization states of the initial waveguide mode. Calculations show that a radially polarized wa...

Near field optical microscopy techniques can be employed to characterize surface plasmon polaritons phenomena. These studies have set the stage for the current surge in the nano-optics field. In this chapter experiments and numerical developments conducted to the understanding of this area are outlined. Furthemore a scanning near-field microwave microscope is presented as an alternative techniq...

Using a near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM), crystals of zinc-porphyrin network materials are characterized with respect to morphology and fluorescence. Needle-shaped crystals are observed. While the topography is flat, the fluorescence intensity profile in the width direction is approximately triangular. A numerical calculation shows that differences between the topographic and optic...

We present a generic wide-field optical sectioning scheme, photobleaching imprinting microscopy (PIM), for depth-resolved cross-sectional fluorescence imaging. Wide-field PIM works by extracting a nonlinear component that depends on the excitation fluence as a result of photobleaching-induced fluorescence decay. Since no specific fluorescent dyes or illumination modules are required, wide-field...

Birefringence, arising from locally preferred orientation of molecules or functional groups in polymeric and relatedmaterials has been observed in a near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) at suboptical spatial resolution. Our observations were successfully correlated to existing structural models of the samples, demonstrating the utility of birefringence observations in NSOM. We present ...