Basic principles of laser assisted process of fiber etching for scanning near-field optical (SNO) probes formation and control technique are presented. The thermal and temporal regimes are considered in order to provide stable reproducibility and high quality of a tapered end of the optical fiber. Problems of adequate definition of the scanning imaging properties of a SNO probe are discussed. Thus an optical method of far-field registration and processing together with a new autoelectronic emission method are considered for solution of the task of a subwavelength SNO probe aperture measurement and estimation of its apparatus function.

Date Published: 19 February 2003
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 4830, Third International Symposium on Laser Precision Microfabrication, (19 February 2003); doi: 10.1117/12.486565

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4830:
Third International Symposium on Laser Precision Microfabrication
Isamu Miyamoto; Kojiro F. Kobayashi; Koji Sugioka; Reinhart Poprawe; Henry Helvajian, Editor(s)