It has only been within the last half decade that the concept of super resolution microscopy in the near-field has been vigorously pursued and experimentally demonstrated. However, the idea of optical resolution unhindered by far field diffraction limitations was conceived more than a half century ago by Synge and further elaborated by O'Keefe in the fifties. That die method was possible, however, was only first demonstrated using 3cm wavelength microwaves almost 20 years later.The basic principles of the method of near field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) have been described before in the literature. Briefly, the idea is as follows: if an optical probe (source or detector) of diameter D is positioned within a distance of approximately D/π from the surface of an object, and the reflected, transmitted or emitted light is detected, then the lateral spatial region from which the information occurs is limited to aregion of approximate size D and not by the wavelength of the illuminated or detected light.
Compensating for artifacts in scanning near-field optical microscopy due to electrostatics
