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arXiv · cond-mat/9707025

The Theory of SNOM: A Novel Approach

Abstract

In this paper we consider the application of electromagnetic theory to the analysis of the Scanning Near-field Optical Microscope (SNOM) in order to predict experimentally observable quantities such as the transmission or reflection coefficients for a particular tip-surface configuration. In particular we present the first application of a transfer matrix based calculation to this challenging problem by using an adaptive co-ordinate transformation to accurately model the shape of the SNOM tip. We also investigate the possibility of increasing the transmitted light through the SNOM tip by introducing a metal wire into the centre of the tip. This converts the tip into a co-axial cable. We show that, in principle, this can dramatically improve the transmission characteristics without having a detrimental effect on the resolution.

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A. J. Ward, J. B. Pendry. 1997-07-02. The Theory of SNOM: A Novel Approach. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500349708230770

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