Polaritonic fiber probe and method for nanoscale mapping

Abstract

The invention offers high resolution and accuracy for nanoscale temperature mapping. Instead of collecting light after emission in near-field that decays to far-field, the present invention directly couples the near-field waves to a polaritonic-coated infrared probe. The polaritonic coating can be formed on an IR-tuned optical fiber to receive the coupled IR radiation and form polaritons, including plasmons or phonons, using the IR polaritonic material. The IR polaritons propagate along the probe decay back into the fiber core without substantial losses to far-field and are transmitted to a detector, such as a spectroscope. The coupling of the near-field energy to emission detected through the tip apex of fiber can be expressed as emission spectra. Through mapping with other spatial points, multi-dimensional displays and other information can be provided. The resolution can be less than 100 nanometers, such as at least an order of magnitude less than 100 nanometers.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.