Immaterial tip concept by light confinement.
It is shown that the combination of TM polarized coherent evanescent light beams can lead to (x, y) confined light distributions. Moreover, owing to the evanescent nature of the interfering beams, the spatial distribution of the square modulus of the electric field does not vary versus the z-distance. Such an energy distribution can be used as a virtual tip, allowing the scanning of a sample without any mechanical contact with it.
Grosjean
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Laboratoire d'Optique P.M. Duffieux, UMR 6603, Institut des Microtechniques de Franche-Comté FR 67, 25030 Besançon cedex, France. tgrosjean@lob.univ-fcomte.fr
Courjon
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