Development of a scanning microscopy by total internal reflection coupled with thermal lens spectroscopy

Non-destructive measurement of a small region on a solid/liquid interface is of great importance in physical chemistry and biochemistry, especially in the research of thin films and cell membranes. Optical methods for surface analysis with high lateral resolution are suitable methods for monitoring them. We now report a new scanning optical microscopic method to which total internal reflection coupled with a thermal lens technique was introduced. Its lateral resolution was estimated both experimentally and theoretically. To experimentally estimate the resolution, the grid patterns of thin photoresist films with well-defined lateral structures were measured. The experimental resolution was about 45 microm, which was almost same as the diameter of the excitation beam at a glass/sample interface. From this result, it was verified that this new scanning microscopy ideally worked.