scholarly journals Attaboy! Attoboys, or the new Zeptoscopists

1993 ◽  
Vol 1 (8) ◽  
pp. 2-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Revel
Keyword(s):  
Optical Microscopy ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Scanning Force Microscopy ◽  
Scanning Tunneling ◽  
Far Field ◽  
Force Microscopy ◽  
Near Field Optics ◽  
Scanning Force ◽  
Scanning Optical Microscopy ◽  
Near Field Scanning

As the year ends there is a bumper crop of announcements of advances that I find absolutely amazing. First of course is the continued clever use of light as a veritable tool in manipulating everything from atoms (entrapping them in “atomic molasses”) to having tugs of war with biological motors (using “light tweezers”). But these developments will be for discussion another time. What I want to talk about in this installment are advances in Near Field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM), which has now been used by Chichester and Betzig to visualize single molecules.In classical (far field) optics, resolution is limited by diffraction to about 1/2 the wavelength of the radiation used for imaging. Near field optics overcome this limitation by use of scanning techniques similar to those employed in Scanning Tunneling or Scanning Force Microscopy.

Progress in near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM)

1988 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 436-437
Author(s):  
E. Betzig ◽  
M. Isaacson ◽  
H. Barshatzky ◽  
K. Lin ◽  
A. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Optical Microscopy ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Visible Region ◽  
Optical Microscope ◽  
Scanning Tunneling ◽  
Far Field ◽  
Tunneling Microscopy ◽  
Scanning Optical Microscopy ◽  
Near Field Scanning ◽  
Scanning Electron

The concept of near field scanning optical microscopy was first described more than thirty years ago1 almost two decades before the validity of the technique was verified experimentally for electromagnetic radiation of 3cm wavelength.2 The extension of the method to the visible region of the spectrum took another decade since it required the development of micropositioning and aperture fabrication on a scale five orders of magnitude smaller than that used for the microwave experiments. Since initial reports on near field optical imaging8-6, there has been a growing effort by ourselves6 and other groups7 to extend the technology and develop the near field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) into a useful tool to complement conventional (i.e., far field) scanning optical microscopy (SOM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and scanning tunneling microscopy. In the context of this symposium on “Microscopy Without Lenses”, NSOM can be thought of as an addition to the exploding field of scanned tip microscopy although we did not originally conceive it as such.

Atomic Force Microscopy and Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy Measurements of Single Human Retinal Lipofuscin Granules

2000 ◽  
Vol 104 (51) ◽  
pp. 12098-12101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. R. Clancy ◽  
Jeffrey R. Krogmeier ◽  
Anna Pawlak ◽  
Malgorzata Rozanowska ◽  
Tadeusz Sarna ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atomic Force Microscopy ◽  
Optical Microscopy ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Force Microscopy ◽  
Atomic Force ◽  
Lipofuscin Granules ◽  
Scanning Optical Microscopy ◽  
Near Field Scanning

scholarly journals Near-Field Plasmon-Resonance Scanning Microscopy

1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (8) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Sheldon Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Plasmon Resonance ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Far Field ◽  
Lateral Size ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Signal To Noise ◽  
Near Field Optics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scanning Optical Microscopy ◽  
Near Field Scanning

In the past few years the field of near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) has developed rapidly with applications spanning all the physical sciences. A key goal of this form of microscopy is to obtain resolution at levels well beyond those possible with the usual far-field optics. In contrast to far-field optics, which is bounded by the well known limits imposed by diffraction, near-field optics has no “in principle” fundamental lower limit in lateral size, at least down to atomic dimensions, although in practice, signal-to-noise considerations may restrict the application of NSOM to a few nanometers.

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