SIMPLE REFLECTION SCANNING NEAR-FIELD OPTICAL MICROSCOPE USING THE BACK REFLECTED LIGHT INSIDE THE LASER CAVITY AS DETECTION MODE

A new simple and compact technique of optical detection in reflection SNOM is proposed and developed. It consists of detecting the perturbat ion induced in a laser cavity by the reflected light coming from the s ample. Two cases have been studied: the first one involves a classical HeNe laser and the second one exploits the properties of a pigtailed laser diode. Whereas the HeNe laser is too unstable to provide exploit able images, highly compact pigtail diodes could be an interesting alt ernative to usual beam-splitter techniques.