PHOTON SCANNING-TUNNELING-MICROSCOPY AND SPECTROSCOPY APPLICATIONS

This paper is a review of the results obtained in our laboratory on the development of the Photon Scanning Microscope since 1988. We show the ability of this microscope to produce images of the surface of transparent samples with a resolution below the Rayleigh limit for a visible source as well as for an infrared one. For inhomogeneous samples, the spatial spectroscopy adapted to the PSTM gives the distribution of the variation of the refractive index, that can be used to characterize rib or channel waveguides. Finally, studies on surface plasmons on a thin film of silver are locally performed by using the PSTM