Polarization-Dependent Contrast of Near-Field and Far-Field-Propagating Signal Intensities in C-Mode Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscopy/ Photon Scanning Tunneling Microscopy*

Abstract

A recent paper by Naya et al. (Opt. Commun. 124 (1996) 9) presented high-resolution imaging results obtained in the sub-100-nm range with a collection-mode near-field optical microscope. The images exhibit apparent polarization dependence. A simple modeling and calculation based on the experiment, using a semi-microscopic and perturbative approach, showed that the far-field-propagating signal intensity converted from the near-field can qualitatively explain the polarization dependence of the experiment if the taper angle of the probe tip is taken into account.