Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 057401 (2005) [4 pages]

Far-Field Optical Microscopy with a Nanometer-Scale Resolution Based on the In-Plane Image Magnification by Surface Plasmon Polaritons

Abstract

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Igor I. Smolyaninov¹, Jill Elliott², Anatoly V. Zayats², and Christopher C. Davis¹
¹Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
²School of Mathematics and Physics, The Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom

Received 10 March 2004; published 7 February 2005

See accompanying Physics Focus

A new far-field optical microscopy capable of reaching nanometer-scale resolution is developed using the in-plane image magnification by surface plasmon polaritons. This approach is based on the optical properties of a metal-dielectric interface that may provide extremely large values of the effective refractive index n_eff up to 10³ as seen by surface polaritons, and thus the diffraction limited resolution can reach nanometer-scale values of λ/2n_eff. The experimental realization of the microscope has demonstrated the optical resolution better than 60 nm at 515 nm illumination wavelength.

URL:

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.057401

DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.057401

PACS:

78.67.–n, 07.60.Pb, 42.79.–e, 78.20.Ci

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 057401 (2005) [4 pages]

Far-Field Optical Microscopy with a Nanometer-Scale Resolution Based on the In-Plane Image Magnification by Surface Plasmon Polaritons

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