Plasmonic AFM tip using a quartz-like NANOSENSORS Uniqprobe qp-CONT as basis, image courtesy of Ruei-Han Jiang, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University
In the recently published article “New-Field Plasmonic probe with Super Resolution and High Throughput and Signal-to-Noise Ratio” by Ta-Jen Yen et. Al. a plasmonic tip is described that could be employed in near-field optics, nanolithography, tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and other applications.
The authors of the article demonstrate what other papers have already talked about in the past: it is possible to use probes like the NANOSENSORS Uniqprobe qp-CONT as basis to make working probes for NSOM or TERS, by using radially polarized light. They go a step further by FIB tailoring the metal film that fully covers the transparent tip.
Congratulations to the authors!
You can find the full article if you follow this external link:
Ruei-Han Jiang, Chi Chen, Ding-Zheng Lin, He-Chun Chou, Jen-You Chu, and Ta-Jen Yen
Near-Field Plasmonic Probe with Super Resolution and High Throughput and Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Nano Letters Article ASAP
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04142
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04142
A lot of work was done by research groups at the University of Neuchâtel, more than 10 years back, demonstrating the high resolution properties of microfabricated apertureless (fully metal coated) transparent quartz tips, where a connection between the observed high spatial resolution and longitudinally polarized fields confined at the probe apex was observed. The authors gave direct experimental evidence that, after injection of a radially polarized beam, a confined single spot is produced at the tip apex.
For further relevant papers, also refer to:
Tortora, E. Descrovi, L. Aeschimann, L. Vaccaro, H.-P. Herzig, R. Dändliker,
Selective coupling of HE 11 and TM 01 modes into microfabricated fully metal-coated quartz probes, Ultramicroscopy 107, 158 (2007), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2006.07.004
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030439910600146X
Descrovi, L. Vaccaro, L. Aeschimann, W. Nakagawa, U. Staufer, H.-P. Herzig,
Optical properties of microfabricated fully-metal-coated near-field probes in collection mode, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A/Vol. 22, No 7 (2005), https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAA.22.001432
https://www.osapublishing.org/josaa/abstract.cfm?uri=josaa-22-7-1432
Descrovi, L. Vaccaro, W. Nakagawa, L. Aeschimann, U. Staufer, H.-P. Herzig,
Collection of transverse and longitudinal fields by means of apertureless nanoprobes with different metal coating characteristics, J. Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 85, 5340 (2004), https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1827925
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1827925