FIBER LASER PROBE FOR NEAR-FIELD SCANNING OPTICAL MICROSCOPY

A hybrid near-field/fiber laser probe has been developed for high flux, reflection mode optical imaging of surfaces on a subwavelength scale. Spatial resolution of approximately 100 nm (i,e., approximately lambda/10 at lambda = 1060 nm) has been achieved simultaneously with signals of approximately 10(14)-10(15) photons/s, an improvement of approximately 10(3)-10(4) over earlier designs. The probe thus represents an important step in the development of advanced near-field transducers for high bandwidth applications such as high density data storage.