Near-field Optical Microscopy Fiber Probe Developed

SNOM (Scanning Near-field Optical Microscope, or NSOM, Near-field Scanning Optical Microscope) successfully extended the resolution of conventional optical microscope beyond the diffraction limit. It can be used to observe and study sample's topography and internal characters in submicron scale by optical method.This paper is related to the optical probe, which is the key element of NSOM. All kinds of characters and fabricating methods of different optical probes is introduced. The main point of this paper is about a fabricating method of bi-functional bend optical fiber probe, namely a heated pulling combining chemical etching method. We have improved the method on the equipment and the experiment parameter and got the better probe capability (such as the diameter of apex, the cone angle and the diameter of cantilever). The bi-functional bend optical fiber probe is used in our newly developed AF/PSTM system. The optical images and topographic images are obtained simultaneously and the image separation is realized.