Abstract

Recent advances in photon scanning tunneling microscopy made it possible to image with subwavelength resolution near-field intensity distributions of EM fields near rough surfaces irradiated by external light.^1-3 This technique allows one to study localization and amplification of local fields near such surfaces, which is important for understanding of rough surface enhancement of nonlinear optical processes.^4-5 We will discuss numerical and experimental studies of the spectral dependence and spatial distribution of local EM fields near the surface of self-affine silver films with nanometer- structured roughness.

© 1998 Optical Society of America