Abstract

With the advent of Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM) ultra high resolution optical microscopy has attracted a large interest. Although after more than a decade the conventional mode of SNOM that uses a subwavelength aperture has bottomed out at a resolution of roughly 50nm, an unlimited resolution could be expected in optical near-field microscopy. One of the conceptually simplest configurations for reaching a nearly molecular resolution is replacing a physical aperture by a single molecule as a point-like source. The experimental realization of this idea has been confronted with several challenges. Here we report on the first demonstration of this form of optical microscopy¹ and discuss its prospects for achieving the ultimate limit of resolution in this arrangement.

© 2001 Optical Society of America