Design and application of scanning near-field optical/atomic force microscopy

This paper describes the design and application of a scanning near-field optical/atomic force microscope (SNOAM). A sharpened and bent optical fiber was used as a near-field optical probe as well as an atomic force microscope probe in a vertical vibrating mode. SNOAM provides simultaneous topographical and optical images with a resolution better than 100 nm. The SNOAM observation modes such as transmission, reflection, fluorescence and in liquids were presented and demonstrated with high resolution. As an example of application to optical processing, we produced pit pattern, down to similar to 200 nm in diameter exposed and developed in commercial photoresist film.