GENERATION OF OPTICAL STANDING WAVES AROUND MESOSCOPIC SURFACE-STRUCTURES - SCATTERING AND LIGHT CONFINEMENT

Optical scanning probe devices offer an extremely efficient way of col lecting local information on the complex structure of optical electrom agnetic fields lying near a surface. This paper discusses recent theor etical efforts to develop an efficient method for the calculation of t he field distributions in experimentally relevant near-field and integ rated optics systems. In order to overcome the obstacles inherent in t he matching of the electromagnetic boundary conditions on the surface of complex objects, the discussion is presented in the framework of th e integral-equation formalism. This treatment is based on the field-su sceptibility Green-function technique applied in real space. Two origi nal numerical schemes, both based on a different discretization proced ure, are discussed, and several numerical applications on systems of e xperimental interest are presented. Particularly, the problem of near- held distribution around three-dimensional objects of various sizes an d shapes is investigated as a function of experimental parameters.