A Horizontal-type Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope toward Non-destructive Soft Materials Imaging

Jia-Ru Yu^1,2, He-Chun Chou¹, Chih-Wen Yang³, Wei-Ssu Liao², Ing-Shouh Hwang³, Chi Chen^1*

¹Research Center of Applied Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
²Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
³Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Chi Chen, email:chenchi@gate.sinica.edu.tw

We design and build a horizontal-type aperture based scanning near-field optical microscope (a-SNOM) with superior mechanical stability toward high resolution and non-destructive topographic and optical imaging. We adopt the torsional resonance (TR) mode for the AFM operation to achieve a better force sensitivity and a higher spatial resolution even with the blunt a-SNOM tip. Finally, a-SNOM imaging of fluorescent dye-labeled lipid domains is successfully achieved without sample damage by our horizontal-type a-SNOM system.

Keywords: Near field, SNOM, AFM, soft material, optical imaging