Nanowriting on ferroelectric surfaces with a scanning near-field optical microscope

We use a scanning near-field optical microscope in illumination mode with a metal-coated optical-fiber tip to write, at ambient conditions, nanolines on triglycine sulfate ferroelectric surfaces. Our experiments show that, in spite of the cutoff, the outcoming light intensity is sufficient to modify locally the triglycine sulfate surface. We present images that show that, with this method, linewidths as small as 60 nm can be achieved that are stable over several days. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America