Quantitative microwave near-field microscopy of dielectric properties

A theoretical model analysis for a recently developed scanning evanescent microwave microscope has been performed. The result enables a quantitative microscopy of local complex dielectric constant profiles for dielectric materials. Various experiments were performed and found to be in good agreement with the theoretical results. The estimation of intrinsic resolution of the microscope suggests that nanometer spatial resolution is achievable. System analysis gives a limiting sensitivity of about delta epsilon/epsilon similar to 1 x 10(-5). (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(98)02711-7].