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Scanning near-field optical probe with ultrasmall spot size

Article  in  Optics Letters · May 1995

DOI: 10.1364/OL.20.000970 · Source: PubMed

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970 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 20, No. 9 / May 1, 1995

Scanning near-field optical probe with ultrasmall spot size

L. Novotny
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland

D. W. Pohl and B. Hecht

IBM Research Division, Zurich Research Laboratory, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland

Received January 10, 1995

A novel light-emitting probe for scanning near-field optical microscopy is investigated theoretically. The three-
dimensional vectorial Helmholtz equation is solved for the new probe geometry by using the multiple multipole
method. The novel probe consists of a dielectric tip that is entirely metal coated. It provides a single near-field
spot that can be smaller than 20 nm (FWHM). The dependence on tip radius, taper angle, and metal thickness
in front of the tip is investigated for the power transmission through the probe as well as for the spot size.

One of the most popular methods in scanning near-
field optical microscopy (SNOM) is the aperture
SNOM.1 – 4 The light-emitting probe consists of a
metal-cladded, sharply pointed transparent struc-
ture, most commonly a tapered optical fiber. The
foremost end of the probe is left uncoated to form
a narrow aperture. The light emitted from the
aperture illuminates the sample of interest in close
proximity. The probe is raster scanned over the
transparent sample, and for each position the corre-
sponding transmitted far-field radiation is recorded.
The resolution of the resulting optical images is ap-
proximately given by the size of the aperture.
Because the aperture diameter is usually smaller
than the cutoff radius of the modes propagating in
the probe, all modes run into cutoff, and only an ex-
tremely small fraction of the light input power is
emitted by the aperture.4,5 The aperture diameter
and the taper angle cannot be reduced arbitrarily
because a minimum light throughput must be en-
sured. As a consequence, the low transmission be-
comes the main limiting factor for the improvement of
resolution in aperture SNOM. Optimization of the
optical probe therefore is of great importance for the
advancement of the SNOM technique.
Another problem in aperture SNOM is the strong
enhancement of the electric field at the rims of the
aperture in the plane of polarization by the high cur-
vature of the metal surface at the rims (tip effect
in electrostatics, and lightning rod effect). The re-
sulting near field of the aperture SNOM probe there-
fore consists of two spots, and its extent is given by
the aperture diameter.5 In this Letter we discuss a
modified probe that produces one single near-field
spot. Instead of there being a physical hole in the
coating as the aperture, the metal coating covers the
entire transparent tip, but its thickness is strongly
reduced in the apex region.
For the investigations presented here we used the
multiple multipole method (MMP),6,7 which had been
successfully applied to two-dimensional and three-
dimensional near-field optical problems.5,8 In the
MMP the fields in the individual domains of the
0146-9592/95/090970-03$6.00/0
structure under investigation are described by series
expansion of known analytical solutions of Maxwell’s
equations (multipole functions, plane waves, wave-
guide modes, etc.). Each solution has a free pa-
rameter that can be determined from the boundary
conditions to be satisfied in a suitably selected set of
points on the interfaces between the domains. Usu-
ally more conditions than free parameters are used,
and the resulting overdetermined system of equa-
tions is solved in the least-squares sense. With this
procedure a smooth error distribution is obtained
on the boundaries, and one can evaluate the errors
in the individual boundary points to estimate the
quality of the solution. Note that Maxwell’s equa-
tions are exactly fulfilled inside the domains but are
only approximated on the boundaries. The computa-
tional advantage of the MMP is that only the bounda-
ries need to be discretized and not the domains
themselves.
The investigated SNOM probe consists of a coni-
cal part with a variable taper angle (a ; 1y2 cone
angle) and a cylindrical part that extends to infin-
ity and for which the exact analytical solutions are
known.9 Each part has a dielectric core with a di-
electric constant e ­ 2.16 and an aluminum cladding
(e ­ 234.5 1 8.5i) of infinite thickness in the lat-
eral direction. The fields in the probe are excited
by the fundamental cylindrical HE11 mode incident
from the infinite cylindrical part at a wavelength of
l ­ 488 nm. The diameter of the cylindrical struc-
ture is 200 nm such that the HE11 mode is still in
the propagating regime.9 The apex of the dielectric
core has a variable radius (R), and the residual metal
in front of the tip is thin enough to be transmissive
for the incoming radiation (thickness D). The en-
tire SNOM probe can be situated above a dielectric
substrate (e ­ 2.25) whose distance to the probe (gap
width) can also be varied.
At optical frequencies, only the electric field is
responsible for the interaction with matter (fluores-
cence, polarization, etc.). Our results will there-
fore be described in terms of the square modulus of
the electric field jEj2 . As an example, Fig. 1 shows
 1995 Optical Society of America
 May 1, 1995 / Vol. 20, No. 9 / OPTICS LETTERS 971

the aperture SNOM probe are dominated by the two

peaks occurring at the edges of the aperture. For the
entirely coated SNOM probe the cuts along the y di-
rection are almost identical with the ones in Fig. 3(a).
For the aperture SNOM probe the two peaks are
missing along the y direction but the width of the
curve is always larger than the aperture diameter.
With increasing distance from the exit plane (z ­ 0)
the fields decay the faster the smaller the spot size

Fig. 2. Near fields of three different probes evaluated on

a plane 1 nm in front of the probes: (a) aperture SNOM
probe with 50-nm aperture diameter and a ­ 10±; ( b)
entirely coated SNOM probe with a ­ 30±, R ­ 10 nm,
and D ­ 3 nm; (c) entirely coated SNOM probe with
a ­ 75±, R ­ 10 nm, and D ­ 3 nm. Contour lines of
constant jEj2 (factor of 21/2 between successive lines).

Fig. 1. Contour lines of constant jEj2 on three perpen-

dicular planes through the center of the probe (factor
of 2 between successive lines). a ­ 30±, R ­ 10 nm,
D ­ 5 nm, and a gap width of 20 nm.

the fields in the foremost part of an entirely coated

SNOM probe for a ­ 30±. The exciting HE11 mode
is polarized along the x direction. In the ( y, z) plane
the electric field has no y component. Consequently,
in the ( y, z) plane the electric field is parallel to the
boundaries. In the ( y, z) plane the electric field
always has a component perpendicular to the bound-
aries, and the contour lines are continuous across the
boundaries and the contour lines are discontinuous.
The fast decay toward the end of the probe was al-
ready discussed for the aperture SNOM probe5 and
is also well known from experiment. To the sides
the fields decay exponentially into the aluminum
cladding where a considerable amount of the inci-
dent power is dissipated.
Figure 2 presents the near fields of a 50-nm aper-
ture SNOM probe and the entirely coated SNOM
probe. The fields are evaluated in a plane 1 nm in
front of the probes. In the plane of polarization the
fields of the aperture SNOM probe are strongly en-
hanced at the edges of the aperture. For an aper-
ture in an ideal, infinitely thin screen these fields
become even singular.10 The metal cladding of the
entirely coated SNOM probe is highly curved only in
the apex region. As a consequence, the near field
has one maximum that is centered on the symmetry
Fig. 3. Decay along (a) the x direction of Fig. 1 and ( b)
axis of the probe. The spot size is a function of a, the symmetry axis for D ­ 3 nm and R ­ 10 nm. 50-nm
R, and D but is almost independent of the gap width. aperture SNOM probe with a ­ 10± (dotted curves) and
Figure 3(a) shows cuts along the x direction of Fig. 2. entirely coated SNOM probes with a ­ 15± (solid curves),
The near-field spot of the entirely coated SNOM probe a ­ 45± (dashed curves), and a ­ 80± (dashed – dotted
becomes larger for increasing a, whereas the fields of curves).
972 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 20, No. 9 / May 1, 1995
Fig. 4. (a) Spot size for R ­ 10 nm as a function of taper
angle, D ­ 3 nm (solid curve), D ­ 5 nm (dashed curve),
and D ­ 10 nm (dotted curve). (b) Power transmission
for D ­ 3 nm as a function of taper angle. R ­ 5 nm
(solid curve) and R ­ 10 nm (dashed curve).
is [Fig. 3(b)]. A small size therefore is equivalent to
a highly concentrated near field in three dimensions.
For a spot size of 20 nm the 1y2 decay length in for-
ward direction is ø3 nm, whereas for a spot size of
50 nm it is ø6 nm.
The spot size, defined as the average between the
FWHM of jEj2 along the x and y directions, is shown
in Fig. 4(a) as a function of taper angle a for three
values of the residual metal thickness D; the tip ra-
dius (10 nm) and the distance from the exit plane
(1 nm) are kept fixed. Surprisingly, the spot size re-
mains almost constant over a large range of a and
increases rapidly for a . 50±. Spot sizes less than
20 nm can be obtained by reduction of R and D.
For R , 5 nm a shallow minimum at a ø 20± can
be observed. For a , 20± the contour lines in the
cladding are bending more and more toward the for-
ward direction (Fig. 1) because an increasing fraction
of the light flux propagates outside the core. This re-
sults in increased spot size at very small throughput.
Note that the evaluation of the spot size at distances
of 1 nm from the probe is arbitrary and that the
evaluation immediately in front of the probe would
lead to even smaller spot sizes.
Figure 4(b) shows the power transmission of the
probe versus a for two different values of R. It is
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seen that the transmission varies greatly in the range
between 10± and 30± in both cases. For large a the
two curves are almost identical and approach a value
that is described by the reflection of the HE11 mode
at a metal interface.
In conclusion, we have shown that the entirely
coated SNOM probe can provide a singly peaked and
much smaller near-field spot than those obtained by
conventional open aperture SNOM. Spot size and
power transmission depend on taper angle, tip ra-
dius, and residual metal thickness. Taper angles in
the range of 30± to 50± seem to offer optimum condi-
tions for transmission and spot size. The use of the
SNOM probes described in this Letter should lead to
enhanced resolution in SNOM and to better-defined
images because of the presence of only one spot. The
experimental realization of the probes proposed in
this Letter can be simply done with techniques used
for aperture SNOM. Because pulling of fibers leads
to taper angles usually smaller than 20±, etching tech-
niques, in particular the etching of crystals such as
the ones used in Ref. 1, may be of advantage. To
guarantee a single spot, the highest curvature must
be at the apex of the probe (no tearing off during the
pulling process).
We thank Ch. Hafner and O. J. F. Martin for many
illuminating discussions. We are grateful to J. Zeng
for providing the ring multipoles that were used as
the basis functions in this research.
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4. U. Duerig, D. W. Pohl, and F. Rohner, J. Appl. Phys.
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