Near-field imaging probes electromagnetic waves

Nanoscale optical imaging is playing a key role in nano-photonics, plasmonics, and advanced development, which have lead to multiprobe near-field optical systems including, semiconductor optical physics and photonic-bandgap devices. Chip-based integration of photonic devices and circuits have made near-field imaging an important tool, along with scanning, transmission-electron micrography, Raman spectroscopy, and atomic-force microscopy. Near-field optics is the only optical technique that allows for the investigation that are required increasingly in silicon waveguides with dimensions. Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), allows topographic imaging of the sample, along with additional channels of information obtained by the probe. This multiprobe system enables experimentation in online nano-lithography with either nano-indentation or nano-printing probes. Nonlinear optical phenomena and tip-enhanced Raman scattering are important examples of apertureless near-field optics.