Interest in optical devices that image with superresolution and inherent optical parallelism continues. Recently, the concept of superresolution is pursued along the lines of negative refraction and transparent multilayer, metallo-dielectric photonic band gap structures. Flat superlenses image from the near-field to the near- or far-field with resolution beyond the diffraction limit. There is a need for characterization methods which allow measurement of the point spread function of such devices. Scanning near-field microscopes (SNOMs) measure the field intensity in the vicinity of objects as close as 5 nm due to shear-force technique. Improvement of transversal resolution up to λ/20 may be possible due to considerable improvement of energy throughput of SNOM probes. To this aim we propose to corrugate the dielectric core-metal coating interface of SNOM probes. The corrugations facilitate the excitation of surface plasmons, which enhance the transport of energy to the probe aperture.

Date Published: 6 May 2008
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 6987, Metamaterials III, 698705 (6 May 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.785223

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6987:
Metamaterials III
Nigel P. Johnson; Ekmel Özbay; Nikolay I. Zheludev; Richard W. Ziolkowski, Editor(s)