Past and Present of Near-Field Optics
The present chapter discusses practical aspects of the novel science and technology that uses optical near fields. The history of research and development is described in Sect. 3.1. Section 3.2 describes the structure and performance of probes, which are
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The present chapter discusses practical aspects of the novel science and technology that uses optical near fields. The history of research and development is described in Sect. 3.1. Section 3.2 describes the structure and performance of probes, which are key devices for generating or detecting optical near fields. The present status of research and development is reviewed in Sect. 3.3, including applications to microscopy, spectroscopy, fabrication, optical disk memory, and atom manipulation. Finally, Sect. 3.4 overviews possible trends in the novel fields of optical science that will be founded by exploiting optical near fields.
3.1 History and Progress A primitive proposal to apply the optical near field on a small aperture (see Fig. 2.2) to high resolution optical microscopy was made as early as 1928 [3.1]. However, the theoretical discussion was limited to the framework of wave optics. Consequently, it referred neither to the inherent nature of the optical near field nor to the more promising applications in spectroscopy, fabrication, and manipulation. After this proposal, no significant research and development was carried out for about half a century. Modern studies on the optical near field started in the early 1980s. Early in 1982, the fabrication of a fiber probe was launched in Japan by sharpening an optical fiber [3.2]. Soon afterwards, in 1984 [3.3] and 1986 [3.4], experimental results on near field optical microscopy were published. These were obtained independently of the Japanese work by using the sharp edge of a quartz crystal as a probe. Research and development trends in the 1980s were limited to microscopy, and until today, most of the work has concentrated on applications for scanning probe microscopy to study optical properties of organic/inorganic materials and biological samples. Since the early 1980s, just after launching the fiber probe fabrication, one of the authors (M.O.) realized that fabrication was a more essential application of the optical near field, and that high resolution fiber probes must be fabricated in a reproducible manner in order to realize these applications. Following this realization, remarkable progress was made in fiber probe fabrication by developing a chemical etching process. Applying these fiber probes M. Ohtsu et al., Optical Near Fields © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004
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3 Past and Present of Near-Field Optics
to near-field optical microscopy, high resolution images were obtained, proving the superiority of chemically-etched fiber probes over other probes. This is because the chemical etching process has a very high reproducibility as compared with other processes such as heating–pulling methods. Applications to spectroscopy, fabrication, optical disk memory, and atom manipulation were developed using these high performance fiber probes.
3.2 Probe Technology A probe is a key device for optical near field science and technology. Satisfactory and reliable results cannot be obtained without a high quality probe. The following three basic features are required of the pr
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