Chapter 5
Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscope
Combined with Digital Holography
for Three-Dimensional Electromagnetic
Field Reconstruction
Nancy Rahbany, Ignacio Izeddin, Valentina Krachmalnicoff,
Rémi Carminati, Gilles Tessier and Yannick De Wilde
Abstract Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) has proven to be a very
powerful imaging technique that allows overcoming the diffraction limit and obtaining information on a scale much smaller than what can be achieved by classical
optical imaging techniques. This is achieved using nanosized probes that are placed
in close proximity to the sample surface, and thus allow the detection of evanescent
waves that contain important information about the properties of the sample on a subwavelength scale. In particular, some aperture-based probes use a nanometer-sized
hole to locally illuminate the sample. The far-field radiation of such probes is essential to their imaging properties, but cannot be easily estimated since it highly depends
on the environment with which it interacts. In this chapter, we tackle this problem by
introducing a microscopy method based on full-field off-axis digital holography that
allows us to study in details the three-dimensional electromagnetic field scattered
by a NSOM probe in different environments. We start by describing the NSOM and
holography techniques independently, and continue by highlighting the advantage
of combining both methods. We present a comparative study of the reconstructed
light from a NSOM tip located in free space or coupled to transparent and plasmonic
media. While far-field methods, such as back-focal plane imaging, can be used to
infer the directionality of angular radiation patterns, the advantage of our technique
is that a single hologram contains information on both the amplitude and phase of
the scattered light, allowing to reverse numerically the propagation of the electromagnetic field toward the source. We also present Finite-Difference Time-Domain
(FDTD) simulations to model the radiation of the NSOM tip as a superposition of
a magnetic and an electric dipole. We finally propose some promising applications
that could be performed with this combined NSOM-holography technique.
N. Rahbany · I. Izeddin · V. Krachmalnicoff · R. Carminati · Y. De Wilde (B)
Institut Langevin, ESPCI Paris, CNRS, PSL University, 1 rue Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France
e-mail: yannick.dewilde@espci.fr
G. Tessier
Sorbonne Université, CNRS, INSERM, Institut de La Vision, 17 Rue Moreau, 75012 Paris, France
e-mail: gilles.tessier@sorbonne-universite.fr
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
V. Astratov (ed.), Label-Free Super-Resolution Microscopy,
Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21722-8_5
113
Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscope
Combined with Digital Holography
for Three-Dimensional Electromagnetic
Field Reconstruction
Nancy Rahbany, Ignacio Izeddin, Valentina Krachmalnicoff,
Rémi Carminati, Gilles Tessier and Yannick De Wilde
Abstract Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) has proven to be a very
powerful imaging technique that allows overcoming the diffraction limit and obtaining information on a scale much smaller than what can be achieved by classical
optical imaging techniques. This is achieved using nanosized probes that are placed
in close proximity to the sample surface, and thus allow the detection of evanescent
waves that contain important information about the properties of the sample on a subwavelength scale. In particular, some aperture-based probes use a nanometer-sized
hole to locally illuminate the sample. The far-field radiation of such probes is essential to their imaging properties, but cannot be easily estimated since it highly depends
on the environment with which it interacts. In this chapter, we tackle this problem by
introducing a microscopy method based on full-field off-axis digital holography that
allows us to study in details the three-dimensional electromagnetic field scattered
by a NSOM probe in different environments. We start by describing the NSOM and
holography techniques independently, and continue by highlighting the advantage
of combining both methods. We present a comparative study of the reconstructed
light from a NSOM tip located in free space or coupled to transparent and plasmonic
media. While far-field methods, such as back-focal plane imaging, can be used to
infer the directionality of angular radiation patterns, the advantage of our technique
is that a single hologram contains information on both the amplitude and phase of
the scattered light, allowing to reverse numerically the propagation of the electromagnetic field toward the source. We also present Finite-Difference Time-Domain
(FDTD) simulations to model the radiation of the NSOM tip as a superposition of
a magnetic and an electric dipole. We finally propose some promising applications
that could be performed with this combined NSOM-holography technique.
N. Rahbany · I. Izeddin · V. Krachmalnicoff · R. Carminati · Y. De Wilde (B)
Institut Langevin, ESPCI Paris, CNRS, PSL University, 1 rue Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France
e-mail: yannick.dewilde@espci.fr
G. Tessier
Sorbonne Université, CNRS, INSERM, Institut de La Vision, 17 Rue Moreau, 75012 Paris, France
e-mail: gilles.tessier@sorbonne-universite.fr
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
V. Astratov (ed.), Label-Free Super-Resolution Microscopy,
Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21722-8_5
113