title: Laser Scanning-Assisted Tip-Enhanced Optical Microscopy for Robust Optical Nanospectroscopy.
abstract: Laser-scanning-assisted tip-enhanced optical microscopy was developed for robust optical nanospectroscopy. The laser-scanning system was utilized to automatically set and keep the center of a tight laser-focusing spot in the proximity of a metallic tip with around 10 nm precision. This enabled us to efficiently and stably induce plasmon-coupled field enhancement at the apex of the metallic probe tip. The laser-scanning technique was also applied to tracking and compensating the thermal drift of the metallic tip in the spot. This technique is usable for long-term tip-enhanced optical spectroscopy without any optical degradation.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan RIKEN, Wako, Japan yano@echem.titech.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Taka-Aki
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Yano
authors.affiliation: School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuta
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tsuchimoto
authors.affiliation: School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: Masahito
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mochizuki
authors.affiliation: School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan RIKEN, Wako, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.affiliation: School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan RIKEN, Wako, Japan Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Japan.
authors.forename: Masahiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hara
keywords: Nanospectroscopy; plasmonics; tip-enhanced optical microscopy