Near field and solid immersion optical microscope
AssigneeThe Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
InventorsGordon S. Kino, Scott M. Mansfield
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An optical microscope which includes a high refractive index solid immersion lens interposed between the objective lens and the object being viewed to provide a microscope having resolution which is far better than the Rayleigh diffraction limit in air.
Claims6
In an optical microscope including an objective lens closely spaced to an object to be viewed, the improvement comprising a high refractive index solid immersion lens having a spherical surface facing said objective lens and a flat front surface spaced from the spherical surface and passing through the geometrical center of the spherical surface disposed between the objective lens and the object being viewed to increase the resolution of the microscope by the factor 1/n where n is the refractive index of the solid immersion lens.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.