Toward a near-field optical array

The fabrication and characterization of three near-field optical array types is presented. In all cases, a coherent fiber-optic bundle was chemically etched to produce an array of nanometer-sized, optical fiber tips. The 270 mu m diameter bundle comprised similar to 6000 tapered optical fibers and the smallest, etched optical fiber tips had an similar to 50 nm radius of curvature. This array could be metal coated, and a metal-coated array could be polished to yield an array of nanometer-sized apertures. These variable nanoarchitectures should be amenable to a large number of near-field scanning optical microscopies. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.