Application to dielectric, metallic, and magnetic samples of a transmission mode scanning near field optical microscope with normal force distance regulation on bent optical fibers

We have developed a scanning near field optical microscope (SNOM) based on bent optical fiber probes with a normal force atomic force microscopies (AFM) regulation. The optical fibers are used both as optical probes and AFM cantilevers. This SNOM was especially developed for transmission mode SNOM and it offers the possibility to realize simultaneously all AFM modes imaging and optical analysis. The fiber is used to illuminate the sample and the detection is performed through an inverted optical microscope. This article presents results obtained on dielectric, metallic, and magnetic samples with submicronic features. We have resolved the object of 80 nm in size, separated by 40 nm, and we illustrate the capabilities of our SNOM in investigating, locally, the variation of the optical properties of periodic samples, even though contaminant, and for a large variety of samples. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(99)00712-1].