Micromachined photoplastic probe for scanning near-field optical microscopy

We present a novel hybrid probe for scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM), which consists of a micromachined photoplastic tip with a metallic aperture at the apex that is attached to an optical fiber, thus combining the advantages of optical fiber probes and micromachined tips. The tip and aperture are batch-fabricated and assembled to a pre-etched optical fiber by a simple self-centering procedure. Rectangular apertures of 50 nm X 130 nm have been produced without the need of any post-processing. Topographical and optical imaging with a probe having an aperture of 300 nm demonstrate the great potential of the photoplastic probe for SNOM applications.