The development of near-field optics marked a major advance in microscopy and our ability to develop nanoscale technologies. However, the tapered optical fiber widely in use as the optical near-field probe has serious limitations in its fabrication, its optical transmission efficiency, and its use in arrays.Fabrication of Silicon Microprobes for Optical Near-Field Applications reports on several technological approaches to using silicon micromachining techniques for fabricating microprobes without the drawbacks of conventional optical fiber probes. The authors have developed a simple, effective method for batch-process production of silicon cantilevered probes with apertures as small as 20 nanometers. They have investigated in detail the probes' optical performance characteristics and show how the silicon probes overcome the limitations of the optical fiber probes in terms of production throughput, optical throughput, reproducibility, simplicity of instrumentation, and mechanical performance.
Author(s): Phan Ngoc Minh, Ono Takahito, Esashi Masayoshi
Edition: 1
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 192
Front Cover......Page 1
Preface......Page 6
About the Authors......Page 10
Contents......Page 12
1. Introduction......Page 16
2. Introduction to near-field optics......Page 22
3. Introduction to silicon micromachining technology......Page 46
4. Fabrication of silicon microprobes for optical near-field applications......Page 62
5. Evaluation of microfabricated optical near-field probes......Page 88
6. Novel probes for locally enhancing near-field light and other applications......Page 104
7. Simulation using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method......Page 136
8. Subwavelength optical imaging with fabricated probes......Page 148
9. Optical near-field lithography......Page 158
10. Optical near-field recording with a fabricated aperture array......Page 168
11. Future aspects and conclusions......Page 184
Index......Page 188
