Influence of environmental conditions on shear-force distance control in near-field optical microscopy

In our experiments we show, that a contaminating water film is very important for the shear-force distance control in near-field optical microscopy. This is demonstrated at the transition between a hydrophilic glass surface and a hydrophobic Langmuir-Blodgett film of arachidic acid at different relative humidities. This contaminating water film is one, if not the important reason for the damping of an oscillating fiber during surface approach. It is further shown, that the bulk viscosity of water alone cannot be responsible for the observed damping effect. A thickness dependent viscosity of this water film is proposed. These observations can also explain, why the shear-force distance control works on nearly all surfaces at ambient conditions, but fails to work at very low temperatures. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)00924-X].