NEAR-FIELD OPTICAL HOLOGRAPHY

Near-field optical holography, i.e., a technique that allows one to re cord and reconstruct not only far- but also near-field components of o ptical fields, is conceptually formulated. A near-field hologram can b e recorded with a reference wave, which is totally internally reflecte d by a surface with quasi-two-dimensional objects on it, and reconstru cted with methods of near-field optical microscopy. Subwavelength reso lution of the proposed technique is demonstrated by using both numeric al simulations and experimental observations.