A simple method for the fabrication of low cost scanning near field optical microscope probes with acrylic paint as coating element

We derived a simple method to fabricate scanning near field optical microsc opes (SNOMs) optical probes from commercial cheap communication optical fib ers. The tips are etched in one single step at the oil-acid interface of a HF solution. The resulting probes are then coated with acrylic paint in ord er to screen the light and a small optical aperture is spontaneously formed at the apex. The method is straightforward and requires a few hours for a number of ready to use probes. The original use of paint simplifies strongl y the procedure of screening of the fiber that usually has been performed b y costly and time consuming metal coating technique. We show that the tips are fully operational and we demonstrate a good optical resolving power (10 0 nm). As far as we know, our method makes the cheapest SNOM probes within this resolution range. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.