THE CONCEPT OF A COAXIAL TIP AS A PROBE FOR SCANNING NEAR-FIELD OPTICAL MICROSCOPY AND STEPS TOWARDS A REALIZATION

The concept of a coaxial tip as a probe for scanning near field optical microscopy is described and experiments towards its realisation on the basis of the pulling of glass-coated silver wires. As a result of a combined thermal pulling and wet etching steps, glass tips are obtained with a short piece of a conical silver wire of a diameter between 0.1 and 0.8-mu-m sticking out. Excitation of surface plasmons on the wire lead to light emission from the tip.