NANOMETER-RESOLUTION SCANNING OPTICAL MICROSCOPE WITH RESONANCE EXCITATION OF THE FLUORESCENCE OF THE SAMPLES FROM A SINGLE-ATOM EXCITED CENTER

A scanning optical microscope whose active element (the tip) consists of a crystal containing impurity ions or color centers, which are exci ted by laser radiation, is proposed. The excitation energy from a sing le impurity center located at the point of the tip is transferred to t he fluorescence centers of the experimental sample by the mechanism of resonant dipole-dipole exchange. It is shown that this approach can g ive nanometer spatial resolution with high sensitivity, which in many cases is much higher than the sensitivity of the ''standard'' near-fie ld fluorescence microscopy. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.