During the last decade, atomic and molecular manipulations with the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) lead to fascinating advances: Probing local physical and chemical properties of atoms and molecules on surfaces together with prototypic fabrication of artificial atomic scale structures with atomic scale precision lead to the possibility of new local studies of quantum phenomena. Recent achi...

We report on the fabrication and characterization of nanoscale solid immersion lenses (nano-SILs) with sizes down to a subwavelength range. Submicrometer-scale cylinders fabricated by electron-beam lithography are thermally reflowed to form a spherical shape. Subsequent soft lithography leads to nano-SILs on transparent substrates for optical characterization. The optical characterization is pe...