Apertureless near-field optical microscopy: influence of the illumination conditions on the image contrast

Pierre-Michel Adam (1) , Pascal Royer (1) , Reda Laddada (1) , Jean-Louis Bijeon (1)

1 LNIO - Laboratoire de Nanotechnologie et d'Instrumentation Optique

We report a hybrid microscope composed of an apertureless scanning near-field optical microscope and a commercial atomic force microscope. We discuss the optical origin of the near-field images of a test sample. We show that the optical images have a sharp contrast that depends on the illumination parameters: the state of polarization and the angle of incidence of the incident light.

Keywords: Apertures; Image analysis; Microscopy; Scanning microscopy; Polarization

Domains: Optics / Photonic

Pierre-Michel Adam, Pascal Royer, Reda Laddada, Jean-Louis Bijeon. Apertureless near-field optical microscopy: influence of the illumination conditions on the image contrast. Applied optics, 1998, 37 (10), pp.1814. ⟨10.1364/AO.37.001814⟩. ⟨hal-02292898⟩