Application to dielectric, metallic, and magnetic samples of a transmission mode scanning near field optical microscope with normal force distance regulation on bent optical fibers

We have developed a scanning near field optical microscope (SNOM) based on bent optical fiber probes with a normal force atomic force microscopies (AF M) regulation. The optical fibers are used both as optical probes and AFM c antilevers. This SNOM was especially developed for transmission mode SNOM a nd it offers the possibility to realize simultaneously all AFM modes imagin g and optical analysis. The fiber is used to illuminate the sample and the detection is performed through an inverted optical microscope. This article presents results obtained on dielectric, metallic, and magnetic samples wi th submicronic features. We have resolved the object of 80 nm in size, sepa rated by 40 nm, and we illustrate the capabilities of our SNOM in investiga ting, locally, the variation of the optical properties of periodic samples, even though contaminant, and for a large variety of samples. (C) 1999 Amer ican Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(99)00712-1].