For The Development Of Near-field Optical Microscopy Fiber Probe

Near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) has improved the resolution of conventional optical microscope beyond the diffraction limit, therefore we can observe and study objects' topography and internal characters in less than sub-micron scale by optical method. NSOM has become a new measure and provided new knowledge for developing science, technology and production.This paper is related to the optical probe, which is the key element of NSOM. This paper introduces many characters and fabricating methods of different optical probes. The main point is about a fabricating method of bi-functional bend optical fiber probe, namely a heated pulling combining dynamic/static two-steps chemical etching method, which is proposed and developed ourselves. The bi-functional bend optical fiber probe is used in our newly developed AF/PSTM system. The optical images and topographic images are obtained simultaneously and the image separation is realized.