抄録
We have demonstrated ultrasensitive near-field microscopy in the long-wavelength infrared region without any external illumination. A scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope was developed with a highly sensitive detector (charge sensitive infrared phototransistor: wavelength λ ∼ 14.5 μm) and a thermal evanescent wave was passively obtained from room-temperature objects by vertically modulating a tungsten probe. The spatial resolution of the near-field microscope was estimated to be better than 100 nm (λ/100). The experimental results suggest that thermally excited surface plasmons on Au and surface phonons on SiC could be observed with our microscope. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2011.173]
