Apertureless near-field optical microscope in reflection and transmission modes
Abstract
Apertureless scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) receives an increasing interest in local imaging and analysis. We report a hybrid microscope composed of a commercial atomic force microscope (AFM) and an apertureless SNOM, which operates both in reflection and transmission modes with several illumination and collection systems. The optical probe is a commercial AFM tip integrated on a silicon cantilever. The AFM is operated in the intermittent contact mode at the resonance frequency of the cantilever. We present the images obtained on a grating of cylindrical dots of aluminum and we show the effects of some optical parameters on the SNOM images.