We present experimental measurements and simulation of the spatial distribution of near-field light at the aperture of a Si micromachined near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) probe. A miniature aperture at the apex of a SiO₂ tip on a Si cantilever was fabricated with the low temperature oxidation and selective etching technique. An optical transmission efficiency (optical throughput) of the fabricated probe was determined to be approximately 10⁻² when the aperture size was approximately 100 nm, which is several orders of magnitude higher than that for conventional optical fibers. A three-dimensional finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation shows that the near-field light is well confined within the aperture area with a throughput of 1% for a 100-nm aperture, which is in good agreement with the measurement. The spatial distribution of the near-field light at an aperture of 300-nm diameter shows a full width at half-maximum of 250 nm with a sharp peak that is nearly 60 nm wide. The 2.4% throughput for a 300-nm aperture was estimated based on the measured spatial distribution of the near-field light that is almost the same as the experimental result. We also present the initial results of the fabrication of high throughput coaxial and surface plasmon enhancement NSOM probes.

© 2001 Optical Society of America

[Optical Society of America ]

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Citation lists with outbound citation links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article level metrics are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an OSA member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Log in to access OSA Member Subscription

Related Journal Articles

• Optical Contrast in Apertureless Microscopy (AO)
• Fluorescence lifetime of a molecule near a corrugated interface: application to near-field microscopy (JOSAA)
• Characterization of Near-Field Optical Probes (AO)
• Numerical Analysis of the Transmission Efficiency of Heat-Drawn and Chemically Etched Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscopes (AO)
• Photon Scanning-Tunneling Microscopy of Unstained Mammalian Cells and Chromosomes (AO)

Related Conference Papers

• Femtosecond High-Brightness Nanometer-Sized Coherent Light Source
• Fast-Scanning Two-Photon Fluorescence Imaging Using a Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) Two-Dimensional Scanning Mirror
• Arbitrary Focal-Field Polarization Control for Optical Microscopy
• Plasmon-Resonant Field Enhancement Metallic Tip-Substrate Systems
• Arbitrary Focal-Field Polarization Control for Optical Microscopy