Large area scanning tip system for near field microscope

Abstract

A shear force feedback system, a large area scanning tip near field optical microscope using said system, and a scanning method of said microscope are provided. The shear force feedback system uses a probe to scan a large area of a sample's surface. This system constitutes a large area near field scanning optical microscope. The shear force feedback system comprises a laser for providing a laser beam; a cylinder lens for converting the laser beam from the laser into a uniformly-distributed beam over a large area along a plane parallel to the sample; a probe, disposed on a vibration apparatus and able to vibrate on the plane parallel to the sample, wherein a tip of the probe is placed in the uniformly-distributed beam; a moving apparatus for moving the probe along the plane parallel to the sample so as to scan the sample; and a detecting apparatus for detecting the variation of the light intensity distribution due to the variation of vibration angle around the probe, so as to use feedback to control the distance between the probe and the surface of the sample according to the variation of the light intensity. The probe can scan any kind of sample, including large surface area samples. The near field optical microscope provides a wide dynamic scanning range, from sub-micron to millimeter.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.