The term used in a title is rather uncertain. In microscopy the recent progress of optical methods resulted in the appearance of a large number of techniques many of which can be considered as classical. However, the purpose of this chapter is not to review the wide capabilities of optical microscopy but define some terms which will be used further for the explanation of a confocal microscope p...

This work is a text-book for senior and magistracy students, dedicated to one of the most modern solid-state body surface research techniques – Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM). The book considers the basic SPM types: Scanning Tunnel Microscopy (STM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Electric Force Microscopy (EFM), Magnetic Force Microscopy (MFM), Near-field Optical Microscopy (NOM), which have f...

Diffraction limits standard optical microscopy to a spatial resolution of about half the wavelength of light. We present novel microscopy techniques for imaging semiconductor materials and devices at better than diffraction-limited spatial resolution and observe previously inaccessible phenomena. We discuss the methods and results for Numerical Aperture Increasing Lens (NAIL) and Near-field Sca...

We discuss our recent results as well as planned experiments for obtaining molecular resolution in optical microscopy. By combining single molecule spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy we have demonstrated optical microscopy with a single-molecule light source. We also sketch a method for the use of an inhomogeneous static electric field for determining the position of a molecule in all t...

We demonstrate a new technique for high resolution imaging of near field profiles in highly confining photonic structures. This technique, Transmission-based Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy (TraNSOM), measures changes in transmission through a waveguide resulting from near field perturbation by a scanning metallic probe. Using this technique we compare different mode polarizations and me...