摘要 |
A far-field optical microscope capable of reaching nanometer-scale resolution using the in-plane image magnification by surface plasmon polaritons is presented. The microscope utilizes a microscopy technique based on the optical properties of a metal-dielectric interface that may, in principle, provide extremely large values of the effective refractive index n<SUB>eff </SUB>up to 10<SUP>2</SUP>-10<SUP>3 </SUP>as seen by the surface plasmons. Thus, the theoretical diffraction limit on resolution becomes lambda/2n<SUB>eff</SUB>, and falls into the nanometer-scale range. The experimental realization of the microscope has demonstrated the optical resolution better than 50 nm for 502 nm illumination wavelength.
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