Microsphere-assisted multispectral microscopy

Studies of novel nanostructures have highlighted the need for characterization methods at the nanometric level. To address this challenge, an innovative label-free microsphere-assisted multispectral microscope is presented in this paper. This spectral technique is the first, to our knowledge, to take advantage of the imaging properties of the microsphere. The multispectral acquisition is performed through a 145 mu m diameter soda-lime glass microsphere to map the reflectance spectra over a surface covered by an 8 mu m diameter disk and with an improved lateral resolution of a factor of 1.8. Relevant reflectance characterizations of materials and subdiffracted features demonstrate the technique. The proposed setup can be implemented and adapted to any optical microscope.