SCANNING NEAR-FIELD OPTICAL MICROSCOPY - TRANSFER-FUNCTION AND RESOLUTION LIMIT

We present scanning near-field optical microscopy as an optical instru ment characterized by a transfer function. This approach gives some th eoretical guidelines for the design of near-field optical measurement systems. We emphasize that it is important to distinguish between the resolution for the optical field and the resolution for the object. In addition, to solve the general inverse diffraction problem the measur ement of phase and amplitude of the electromagnetic field is necessary . (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.